It's 3am

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Falk woke up in a groggy haze, a mumbling confused noise escaping him. The side of the bed that was supposed to be occupied by his bedmate was conspicuously absent of a human body. Falk's brow furrowed. Blinking a few times, he pushed himself upright, glancing over at the bedside table and digital clock. 3am. Turning his head around to where the bedroom door was, he noticed the faint light filtering around the rim, meaning that somewhere in the house, lights were on.He made a quietly annoyed hum to himself, having a pretty good idea as to which light was on.

Rubbing at his eye, Falk shoved himself out of bed, adjusting his sleeping shorts so they weren't so twisted around. The bedroom door creaked a little bit as he pushed it open, walking out into the corridor and making his way to the study room a few doors down. He poked his head around the corner of the open doorway, quietly sighing at the sight of Matthew hunched over the main desk with various sheets of paper strewn everywhere.

Matthew nearly jumped out of his skin when Falk gently knocked on the open door, even letting out a very audible yelp. His head whipped around to face the doorway, smacking himself in the face with his own hair. Falk quirked an eyebrow up. Matthew let out a somewhat guilty sounding sigh.

"I thought you agreed to leave this until a reasonable hour of the morning..." Falk tried his best to not sound patronising, but he couldn't help the slightly annoyed inflection to his voice. Matthew made a vaguely pained groan.

"It... It was bothering me. I was trying to get to sleep but the lyrics wouldn't damn well leave me alone."

"How long have you been up?" Matthew averted eye contact for a moment and pulled a face. Falk knew that face.

"About an hour and a half?" Falk really couldn't help his sigh this time. He hung his head for a moment, looking back up with a concerned gaze. He was hesitant to admit he was used to this sort of thing with his partner, but it didn't mean this habit of his didn't worry him. Briefly, his gaze settled on the empty ceramic mug next to Matthew and then back at Matthew.

"Want me to refill that?" Matthew's guilty expression softened slightly as he realised that Falk wasn't mad at him. He nodded tiredly.

"If you could." Falk smiled, walking across the study and picked the mug off of the table. He pressed a quick kiss to Matthew's hair and hugged him a little bit.

"I'll be right back." He quickly slid out of the study and into the kitchen area just at the edge of the hall, those lights were on too, but that just made his job a little easier. Matthew's favourite tea container was already on the kitchen counter with about 5 or 6 bags missing. Falk concluded that his partner must have been main lining his tea for the hour or so he was awake.

Quickly refilling the almost empty kettle, Falk flicked it back on, setting it to boil water for black tea. The kitchen echoed with various clinks and chimes as he got out a clean teaspoon, rinsed the old one off, and grabbed the little container of sugar from the other side of the counter. He grabbed the milk out of the fridge as the kettle indicated it was finished.

Falk could almost make tea in his damn sleep, he and Matthew went through so much of it that the process was almost entirely automatic for the both of them. Put the tea bag in, fill the mug ¾ of the way with hot water, steep and stir for 30 to 45 seconds, remove and dispose of the used tea bag, add enough sugar to please a 16th century royal, stir until the sugar has dissolved, and then add a dash of milk until the mug was about ⅗ full. Falk put a little less sugar into his tea than Matthew did, but he still knew how to make it to Matthew's liking.

Placing the milk back in the fridge, Falk picked up the full mug and carefully made his way back to the study room. In the brief time it took for him to make the tea, several more sheets of paper had be scrawled on and then tossed to the side, all of them had various strange Latin translations on them. Falk gently set the mug down on a part of the desk that didn't have paper on it. Matthew gave a weak and tired sounding "Thanks".

"You know I'm staying up with you, right?" Falk said rather matter-of-factly. He squinted a little bit at Matthew's slight grimace.

"You don't have to do that... You have to sleep at some point."

"So do you. I can tell this song is getting to you from the amount of paper you've tossed everywhere. I'm not having you cry at the ungodly hours of the morning if I'm not there to try and help." Matthew pulled another face, pointedly trying to ignore the dampness threatening his eyes. It wasn't like he could try and convince Falk otherwise, if he wanted to stay up, he would.

"... If you're sure." He really did sound tired, Falk couldn't particularly blame him.

"Of course I am." Falk stated, flopping down onto the other chair in the study. "Now, what's been bothering you about this one?"

Matthew twitched a smile and started to bounce and relay ideas off of Falk. They didn't head back into bed until 8am.

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