The kettle whistled and Silver poured the steaming hot water into the mug, letting the tea bag sit there. Seven minutes usually seemed to do the trick, he'd figured out after a while; not too weak, not too strong.

The kitchen timer rang, he removed the teabag and placed the cup on a saucer to keep it from burning his hand as he carried it into the study. In addition to being a sap with a knight complex, Lance could also be a bit of a workaholic sometimes and tonight was one of those nights he'd been in the study since after dinner.

Silver knocked on the door, but no one answered. Lance couldn't be that immersed in his work, could he? Another knock, still no answer.

"Lance?" He nudged the door open, walked in...and found his lover fast asleep at the desk, leaning back in his chair with a book in his lap. Silver shook his head, placed the mug on the desk, and walked up beside Lance.

"What am I gonna do with you? You get on me about taking care of myself and then you do stuff like this?" An exaggeration, mostly; he knew Lance wasn't doing that much harm to himself. But if the roles had been switched here Lance would be lecturing him. Hypocrite, Silver thought fondly. "It's eleven, you know."

Still no answer. Silver sighed. Lance always told him how cute he was and he hated it, but Silver himself couldn't deny that Lance looked sort of cute when he was asleep. With a quiet chuckle, he leaned in and kissed Lance lightly on the lips.

"Mmm..." That seemed to do it; the dragon tamer's eyes opened a bit and he smiled up at Silver. "What a nice way to wake up. Evening, Silver."

"Evening nothing, it's five after eleven already," Silver said. "Anyway, I brought you some tea."

"How thoughtful of you," Lance said. "You really are sweet sometimes." Silver blushed furiously; sweet was almost as bad a word as cute.

"Yeah, well...you like it and it's late and I was already in the kitchen getting a glass of water, so I figured why not?" Lance just grinned, picking up the mug and sipping; when he set it down he nodded approvingly.

"You're getting better at this," he said. "It's perfect this time." And there came that silly fluttery schoolgirl feeling in his heart; it shouldn't matter that he likes my cooking!

"Well...good." He idly toyed with a few strands of Lance's hair. "So how much longer are you gonna be up? Not that I'm lonely or anything." Lance's hand reached up and caught his own, twining their fingers together.

"Half an hour, I guess," he said. "Unless you want to wait here until I finish?"

"...if I do it's not because I'm lonely and can't sleep without you," Silver said gruffly. "I just wanna keep an eye on you and make sure you don't fall asleep in your chair again." Lance chuckled, wrapping his free arm around Silver's waist and leaning up to kiss his cheek.

"If you say so."

In the end it was Silver who ended up dozing off, his head on Lance's shoulder. In the morning he would realize he'd been carried to bed and complain about it, but a small part of him almost didn't mind.

Almost.