Rift

Chapter 9: Taken For Granted

It's not the light of the morning sunlight on his face that shines through the window that wakes Cree up, it's the sound of pages turning and a scrawling pen. Frantic clicking of a keyboard. Incoherent mumbling that tells him that Regan has yet again let another sleepless night go by.

He sighs and opens his eyes, turning his face to the side with his hands crossed behind his head on the pillow. As he thought, Regan is still at the desk across the room, typing on the laptop given to him by May.

Beside his notebook is the cracked canister of Edith's old EPC that May had also given him to study since he's more likely to understand it than she is. But he still hasn't found anything unusual about it. But that doesn't mean it isn't. He just has to keep looking.

Cree stays laying down comfortably in bed, but his concern shows clear in his eyes. Not that it makes much difference with Regan's back turned.

"Regan, come to bed," he says softly.

Regan slightly jumps and glances back at him over his shoulder. The dark circles under his eyes have grown over the past two days since finding out about Edith's condition.

"I can't. I'm getting close to something. I have to be," he turns forward again and resumes his typing.

Cree frowns and pushes himself up onto his elbows but remains in bed. "Yeah. You're getting close to crashing because you overworked yourself again. You need to take a break."

Regan says nothing and keeps his attention on his notes and the cracked EPC. As he types, he continuously has to delete previously written words and rewrite them as he catches errors almost every other word and he silently growls whenever it happens.

Seeing his frustration only increases Cree's own, so he shifts to sit up and rise to his feet, stretching his arm as he walks over and stands close behind Regan where he sits stiffly in his chair.

He starts by gently placing his hand on his arm so as to warn him of his presence and not startle him again before he wraps his arms around his torso from behind and leans down to plant a soft kiss on his shoulder, getting Regan to halt his sporadic typing and writing so he can try focusing on the feeling.

But still, Cree can tell just by the remaining tension in his body that even though Regan is reveling in this feeling, he wants to get back to work. He's torn, but there's nothing a little persuasion can't accomplish.

Regan sighs and shakes his head. "Cree... I know what you're trying to do."

"Is it working?"

Regan softly chuckles. "Maybe a little. But..." he sighs again. "This is important. This isn't another situation of me just throwing myself into my work to cope with whatever feelings I don't want to face. This is about saving Edith's life. I can't ignore that," he states.

Cree nods and moves to lean back against the desk beside him and he grabs his chin to carefully turn his face up to look at him. "I'm not saying you should. But do you think it's helping anyone that you're not sleeping and hardly eating, too exhausted to think clearly? You need a break."

"But Cree... I can't just—"

"No. You can," Cree states. "Just take a break. Rest. Then once you can actually keep your eyes open long enough to see what you're doing, you can get back to it. But first," he grabs him by his shoulders and gently pulls him to his feet, then he wraps his arms around his back to bring him into a tender kiss.

Regan smiles against his lips and leans forward, his arms reaching around Cree to hold the edge of the desk. But in the action, he bumps his arm into the glass canister and it slips off the wood surface, hitting the ground.