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It’s 3:00 in the morning and Alicia is still awake, it’s one of those nights were she can’t force herself to fall asleep, at first she tried to do some work, might as well do something usefull while distracting herself, but her eyelids became heavy and she needed to read each paragraph five times to understand what was written.
She thought this meant her body was finally tired enough for her to pass out, but she’s already been lying in her bed how god knows how long, and she still can’t sleep, groaning, she lethargically gets up, maybe she should drink a glass of water.
She fumbles in the dark until she finds the handle and open the door, then winces when light hits her eyes, the TV is turned on and Beaford is putting something on the lit stove, Alicia slowly gets closer, trying to see better.
“What are you doing?”
“AAAHH!” Beaford actually jumps a little, quickly turning to face her, a hand on his chest. “Alicia! you can’t just sneak on people like that, i almost had an heart attack!”
“Oh, sorry, my bad” although she found his reaction a little funny.
“I swear i’ll never understand how someone so tall can walk so quietly” Beaford picks a little box from the counter and pulls a tea bag from it “I’m making a tea cup for myself”
Alicia raises an eyebrow at that “In the middle of the night?”
“Yeah… i had a ni- i woke up a while ago and can’t go back to sleep, so i thought some warm tea would help”
She leans on the counter, casually ignoring his slip up “that sounds nice, i’m actually on the same boat as you, except i didn’t sleep at all”
“Wow, you also didn’t sleep well yesterday right? that must be rough, oh! do you want a cup too?”
“Yes please, who knows, maybe this will finally knock me out” she doubts it will, but she’s out of patience and out of ideas and a nice cup of tea sounds really tempting right now.
Beaford puts more water on the kettle, Alicia absent minded looks at the TV while she waits “a culinary show?”
“Right, this is the reprise of one i watched before, it’s really fun, they have to compete for the ingredients before preparing the recipe” he keeps talking about the show, and Alicia notices his face lit up a little.
Soon the tea gets ready, he pours two cups, and gives one to Alicia, before walking to the sofa, Alicia follows, putting Beaford’s blanket to the side before sitting down. Beaford puts the blanket over their legs and then makes himself comfortable.
They watch the competition while waiting for the tea to cool down, Alicia only paying half attention to it, Beaford pokes her whenever something he thinks it’s interesting happens, mainly fights between the contestants, or the use of a weird ingredient on a recipe that definitely needed something else
Judging that enough time has passed, Alicia takes a sip from her cup, humming at the flavor, “hmm? what is this?” she didn’t knew they had anything other than black tea.
Beaford blows his tea before drinking too “it’s lemon balm, i bought a box since it helps me sleep”
“People normally use chamomile tea for that right?”
“Yeah, but chamomile tea doesn’t taste like anything, i tried to drink it but it never really did much for me” Beaford looks down at his cup “my grandma always gave us lemon balm tea when we visited, i used to drink it to try to relax before my tests, so i think i associate it with calmness now?”
“Huh, so it’s more like a placebo effect” Alicia takes another sip “it tastes good, you should buy more” she turns to the TV, a lady’s cake crumbled in front of the judges ”are you sure you should be watching this? if you pay too much attention you will get even more awake'’
“Wait you’re right! uuugh i don’t even want to see what time it is now” they enjoy their tea while Beaford goes thought some different channels.
He briefly stops on a reality show that takes place on a farm “hmm, it’s better not, too much drama”
Alicia takes another sip ”i thought you like this kind of stuff”
He looks a little embarrassed “no i- well yes, i do but this one is on another level okay? Itou’s who is into this type of shown”
“Of course he is” she sighs
“What does that even mean?” Beaford switches to the next channel
It is a movie about a school making a kiss booth? two minutes in and Alicia got so much second hand embarrassment it physically hurts
“Alright, let’s pick something else i refuse to watch this” Alicia borrows the remote, quickly switching channels until she finds one that could work.
Now it’s Beaford’s turn to raise an eyebrow at her “… political debate? seriously?”
“It’s good background noise” she defends herself, knowing very well she just randomly pressed some buttons before landing on the channel.
“…” that judgmental look on his face really annoys her “it would be good if they didn’t shout every time the discussion gets a little heated”
Beaford picks the remote back, they end up settling on a nature channel, it's an episode focusing on Antarctica, they are showing penguins now, it's calm and the narration it’s actually a good background noise this time “plus the penguins are cute!”
?
”Yes? well, whatever helps you i guess” she couldn’t really discuss, the penguins were indeed cute
Alicia finishes drinking and puts her cup at the table, leaning back on the sofa, Beaford takes his time with his, then takes his last sip, leaving his cup beside Alicia’s, he pulls his legs to his chest and rest his chin on them.
They keep talking while watching, Alicia is just half paying attention to the show, more focused on answering him, it’s calm, the TV noise and Beaford comments fill the room, it’s much better than staying on her bed, only now, she notices how suffocating silence was.
Beaford begins takes a little longer to answer her, his voice getting quieter, he puts his legs on the floor, fighting to pay attention, and tries to cover his shoulders with the blanket, but it keeps falling, after the fifth time Alicia puts the edge of it under her arm to hold it in place.
She turns to Beaford to fix the other side of the blanket, and she sees he has fallen asleep.
Alicia almost tries to wake him up, but stops herself at the last second, wasn’t this their goal anyway? she should turn the TV off, but honestly, she doesn’t wan’t to search for the remote right now.
She keeps looking at the screen and spacing out, the narrator keeps describing the wonders of wild life, Beaford is making some soft snores, it reminds her of some of their cases, where they had to spend the night watching a client’s house, it’s peaceful.
Alicia rests her head on the couch, the light of the TV it’s bothering her a little, so she will just close and rest her eyes for a bit, she adjusts herself until she gets comfortable, yes, just for a little bit…
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♪♫kono subarashi ki ka na invitation♫♪♫
Startled, Alicia wakes up to the sound of Beaford’s alarm, this music… it’s from one of the animes he showed her right? she blindly feels around, he left his phone close to him so she manages to find it quickly and turn the damn alarm off, Beaford groans and moves a little but doesn’t wake up.
Alicia is still half awake, she yawns, noticing the room is now bright, then looks at the phone, and it’s a little surprised to see it’s 7:30 am “why does actually wakes up this early? no wonder he takes so many naps”
Now that she is a little more lucid, Alicia sees she slept sitting on the sofa, fuck, her back hurts, she is too old to be doing this kind of thing.
Alicia’s arm still held the blanket in place, Beaford is resting against her other arm, sunk on the sofa, he surely he would be sore from sleeping all bent over like that.
Alicia could get up now, she should get up and do something useful with her day, or at least turn off the TV, but damn she is still tired, she definitely won’t be able to go through the day like this, and despite the pain in neck and back from staying like that all night, that was the best sleep Alicia had in a long time
She rests her head on the sofa again, adjusting her position until she gets comfortable, trying to not disturb Beaford, she then messes with her hair until it blocks the light from her eyes, and lets her consciousness fade once again
Whatever they need to do today, it can wait.