Things you Said at 1 am

Victor was crying. Again. For what felt like the fiftieth time in the past two hours. Marie rolled to her side, almost sobbing: she decided it was a good thing that she usually wore black, since she assumed she'd be holding a funeral for her sleeping-schedule. Stein, for his part, could sleep through an actual apocalypse.

He almost did, too. She had nearly resorted to slapping him awake when they had to get ready for the battle on the moon, seemingly so long ago.

Back when she could actually sleep through the night.

She grumbled, struggling to get up. The bed called to her: the warm spot against Stein's back, where she was cuddling, the soft, stitched blankets.

It was cruel of fate to rip her away. It was cruel of everyone.

It was cruel of Victor. Her son got his manners from his father, who did nothing but flop over when the cool breeze of the night caught his back. He fidgeted uncomfortably, eyebrows furrowing in sleep, likely missing her body heat.

It served him right. She cursed Stein and his far more convenient sleeping habits.

Sighing, Marie finally made her way upright, taking a moment to scoop his lab-coat from where he kept it draped on the back of the chair. She didn't feel like putting on her dress, and the air was freezing on her naked form when she left the safety of her bed. Though Stein always kept his jacket open, she was practically swimming in it, so she wrapped it around herself.

Why she was worried about propriety when she was going to see her baby, she didn't know. It was too late at night, too early in the everloving morning, for her to be concerned with making any sense.

She blamed that for the desk situation, too. How was she supposed to see it? She couldn't have seen it.

Okay, so she could have, but she was so tired. When she knocked against the side of it, sending multiple things crashing to the ground, she wondered where in her life she must have gone wrong to consider sobbing over the fact that she was awake at 1 am in the morning, trying to make her way to her wailing son and not even being able to successfully leave through the door.

She sent a prayer up to whichever deity was listening: she would do anything, she didn't even care, if she could just get some damn sleep.

When she heard Stein make a sleepy noise, she whipped around, watching as he rose from the pillows like a vampire after groping around for her form on the bed, finding her missing.

"Marie?" he asked, squinting to take in her shape. He only blinked twice, the squinting hurting his eyes, before he reached to their bedside table in order to grasp hold of his glasses, analyzing the scene in front of him with his corrected vision.

He shook his head, yawning as he clicked his bolt back and made his way out of bed. Marie looked up at him as he walked to her, lifting a brow. Her exhausted expression was particularly emphasized in the lack of light.

Slowly, as though she would run away if he touched her, he unwrapped his lab-coat from around her, slipping it off her shoulders in order to put it on himself, herding her back to the comforts of their mattress.

"I'll take care of it," he said. "Get some sleep."

And as he left the room, the ends of the lab-coat swirling while he avoided the mess on the floor, she sent a thanks up to whoever was listening.

So, I ended up getting a ton of SteinMarie prompts and requests on Tumblr, and decided to post the shorter ones up in this drabble dump! I don't know how many there'll end up being, but the shorter fics that I have will all end up here!