Unpromised Home

night unto dawn

'in which you sleep in an office'

Your eyes flutter open into the partial darkness. Rubbing the crusts from the corners of your eyes, you glance around the office. A desk lamp had become the only source of light in the room.  The yellow bulb cast a glow across the desk, spreading only a few feet onto the wood floor.

America sat leafing through some papers. His face was pressed into a glower as he flips one of the pages over. A sigh comes from him. His nose scrunches up in distaste.

At the cry of your stiff legs, you straighten them. You wince as your knees have a painful breath of relief. One of your ankles prickles with pain as it wakes itself back up. An audible yawn falls from your lips as you stretch your arms forward.

"You're up?" America's voice, followed by a fluttering of paper causes you to jolt in surprise. You guess he noticed your movement.

"Yeah-" You cringe as your voice cracks from lack of use, "I am." Silence follows your confirmation. America reaches over to grab something across his desk. At the sound of a click, you discern that it's a pen.

You glance back out of the window. It was too dark to see anything much. Just the small fluctuation of shadows that cross over the ground. Maybe a breeze had picked up while you were asleep. You didn't remember any wind earlier.

America lets out a quiet string of curses, followed by multiple pen clicks. You watch him curiously as he reaches across the desk for a pad of paper. He scribbles something down on it, before resting his head in his hand. A look of defeat crosses his face.

The pen clicks again. Click, click, click. You raise an eyebrow in concern. Just what was he working on?

"What are you doing?" The pen drops from his hand, rolling across his desk, landing on the floor with a quiet, plastic-sounding thud. He sighs.

"Paperwork." You stand up from the floor, almost stumbling over your feet as you do, "It's nothing important." America flips the page he was reading over as you approach the desk, deliberately placing it so it covered the other scattered pages. Nothing important, huh?

You bend down to pick up the pen, fighting back a yawn. Placing it back on the desk, the yawn slips from you. Blinking slowly, exhaustion floods your body. You make your way back to the window.

Sitting down you rest your head back on the window. The cool surface fogs from your warm breath coating it. You smile lightly. Not bothering to resist the childish urge, you take your finger, dragging it through the coat of condensation. The smile staring back at you makes you chuckle softly.

"What are you doing?" You hum softly at America's question.

"Not much." You stare out into the dark, "What time is it?"

"I don't know." He sighs annoyed, clicking the pen in his hand, "After midnight?"

"Don't you sleep?"

"Don't you?"

"I just was."

"Right..." He sighs, flipping a page over on his desk. It becomes quiet for a long while, only broken by the flipping of paper and clicking of America's pen.

You yawn again, leaning back against the window. It was damp from your breath, you cringe as your uninjured cheek sits against the damp surface. With your coat arm, you rub the window dry.

Your exhaustion pulls you into a soft lull. Not quite awake. Not quite asleep, but more than enough to still be pulled into consciousness at every sudden noise. Who knew paperwork was so noisy? You guess that was to be expected with the amount of pen-clicking America does, though.