A Touch of Life

19

Seamus dropped Emmie and Fleur off at Emmie's bakery. Fleur was drifting off to sleep with her face pressed up against the car window, and Emmie turned to scowl at Seamus, blinking rapidly to try and keep his eyes open.

"Why here?" he managed to say, though his words sounded slow and slurred even to him.

"It's 7am, you need to go to work," Seamus replied, looking suspiciously smug as he leant over to open Emmie's door for him.

Emmie looked outside to see that at some point on their drive home, it had gotten light. The sun had risen almost completely now, and there were people slowly beginning to fill the streets. Seamus turned round and prodded Fleur in the shoulder, making her jolt awake and hit her head on the roof of the car.

"I'll see you guys later, I'm off to have the longest sleep in the history of ever," announced Seamus, grinning at them both.

"Asshole," Emmie muttered as he managed to roll out of the car and onto the street, squinting at the bright light burning his tired eyes.

Fleur looked in a worse state. She was stumbling around in a daze, her jaw was slack and her eyes were only half open. Emmie rooted around for his gloves in his pocket so that he could grab Fleur's hand to keep her somewhat upright, and Fleur turned to him to smile gratefully.

"Woah, you both look like shit," was Kai's greeting as the two walked through the door.

"Haven't slept," mumbled Emmie. Fleur just grunted.

"Yeah, I can tell. What have you even been doing? Wait, I don't want to know," Kai grimaced and shivered, and Emmie couldn't help but snort and laugh under his breath. Whatever Kai was thinking, it was probably very far from the truth.

"Well we have two hours before opening, so Fleur, go sleep in one of the booths before you keel over," instructed Kai. Fleur nodded once, and squeezed Emmie's gloved hand before she wandered off to find somewhere to sleep.

"Can I sleep too?" asked Emmie hopefully, taking his gloves off and letting them drop to the floor. He was swaying on the spot, he could feel it. All of the previous adrenaline that had been keeping him going had definitely gone now, and it felt like all of his bones had turned to liquid.

"Nope. You need to make everything for the day's menu, then you can sleep," Kai took Emmie's arm and lead him towards the kitchen, shoving him through the doorway.

"Don't fall asleep," he commanded, before hurrying off out of sight.

Emmie sighed and tried to resist the urge to just curl up on the floor as he shuffled around his kitchen turning on the ovens and collecting what he needed. Emmie huffed a laugh, recalling how surreal the past twenty-four hours had been.

Even if he tried, he could never explain them to anyone in a way that would even remotely make sense. They had done their job though, and solved another mystery, though Emmie couldn't remember ever having as much fun as he had that night helping Seamus before.

Kai came back into the kitchen fifteen minutes later to find Emmie curled over the counter with his arms on the surface and his head rested on top of them. He still had a mixing spoon clutched loosely in his hand and a bowl of cake mix in front of him. He was snoring lightly and drooling on the countertop, and Kai didn't really have the heart to be properly mad at him.

"You are useless!" Kai yelled loudly, making Emmie sit up with a gasp and nearly topple off of his chair. He looked around in a daze until he spotted Kai stood in the doorway with his arms crossed. Emmie groaned and let his head fall back onto the counter.

"Go home. I can deal with things for today. Take your girlfriend with you and get some sleep, for god's sake," Kai tried to look stern, but as Emmie got out of his chair and reached forward to ruffle Kai's hair with a sleepy grin, muttering a very heartfelt "thank you," Kai couldn't help but smile.