~~~~~
I rub at my eyes, then look back down into the pot at the chocolatey dessert. Stirring it lightly, I yawn, covering my mouth, then set my hand at my waist with a huff. When someone clears their throat behind me, I jump, the wooden spoon clattering onto the surface of the oven loudly.
"Y/n?" Thomas, my roommate, yawns sleepily. "What're you doing?"
"Making pudding," I mumble. "What does it look like?"
"It looks like you've gone insane," mutters Thomas. I raise my eyebrows, and he puts his hands up in mock surrender. "Its three in the morning, what do you think it looks like?"
I shrug, then turn back around, picking up the spoon and stirring the pudding to distract myself from his bare chest. "I couldn't sleep," I mumble quietly after a few silent moments.
"Wait - again?" He asks, bewildered.
I nod. "I don't know why," I say, turning my head to look at him. "I've taken meds. I've tried those weird remedies that girl from English told me about. I've literally tried sleeping at any given point of day, and it doesn't fucking work." I huff frustratedly, tossing the spoon into the pot then scowling when it makes a small splatter on the stovetop.
I hear Thomas's steps come closer to me, and practically hear the frown in his voice when he speaks. "How long has it been since you've slept properly? And why didn't you tell me?"
"Uh...couple days?" I say with a noncommittal shrug. "I mean, more than a week, at least."
He walks up behind me, and touches my shoulder. Unexpectedly, he begins to rub it gently, muttering a quiet "You're so tense" before bringing his free hand up to my other shoulder, kneading his fingers soothingly into my partially-bared arms, pulling me close to him. "Feel better?" He mumbles against my shoulder.
I nod weakly. "Peachy," I manage to say, but my throat dries up when I feel his lips press against the back of my neck. Wrapping an arm around my waist, he pulls he over to the side, turning me around so that my back was pressed against the edge of the counter. My eyebrows furrow slightly. "What're you doing, Tom?" I ask, hesitating before resting my hands on his sides. Internally, there's a voice shouting at me that this was a bad idea, but there was a louder, much more convincing voice that this was, in fact, the greatest thing to happen in this dorm thus far, so I should let it happen.
Thomas's nose slides against mine, and his lips barely brush against my jaw as he whispers, "I have no idea." He presses a hot, open-mouthed kiss to the corner of my jaw before looking up at me, pausing. He brings both hands up to my face, curling one around the side of my neck and touching my cheek with the other. Just as he leans in to kiss me, a loud alarm makes me jump, and I hit my forehead with his, looking around. When my eye catches the stove, instead of my chocolate pudding, I see a lump of smoking black goo, which had set off the fire alarm.
With a sigh, Thomas pulls away, walking over and reaching up so that he could turn the alarm off. With a dry chuckle, he states, "Great. As if the neighbors didn't hate us enough already." With a sparing glance at the black mass on the stove, he walks over to the couch in front of the television, lying down so that we was spread out over it. He opens his arms out, gesturing for me to come to him.
I raise my eyebrows. "What're you doing now?" I ask, slowly walking over to him.
"Well," he says, taking my hand and pulling me down on top of him with a grunt. "If you're staying up, so am I." He adjusts us so that my head was on his chest, and our legs tangled in some way or another. "Maybe you'll be able to sleep this way."
I look up at him with a small smile. "Thanks, Thomas."
Looking down at me with a cheeky smile, he leans forward, closing the small gap between our lips for a moment before pulling back and kissing the top of my head. "No problem."
~~~~~
