Sybil had some major assessments and inspections coming up at work, and it was really affecting her focus and her happiness. She and Tom both knew that it was temporary – she'd be back to her usual cheerful self soon, but until then, she would have to endure the stress.
What nobody expected was that Sybil's stress would inadvertently affect Tom so significantly. Tom hadn't been sleeping well recently. He'd been trying to figure out why, but he hadn't been stressed at work, he didn't have any big life events coming up that were weighing on his mind, and he'd been physically very healthy recently. It had been driving him mad for a good few weeks that his sleep quality had been terrible, despite having no discernible reason for it. That is, until he realised that it wasn't his own stress that was the culprit, but Sybil's.
Ever since he and Sybil turned their initially casual relationship into a serious one, Tom had always found it difficult to sleep alone. Before they moved in together, they were almost always at each other's houses for the night, and when they weren't, Tom hated it. When one of them had to go away for work, Tom would barely get any sleep. And when Sybil had night shifts, even though it had happened enough that Tom had become slightly more used to it, he still found that he slept very lightly when she was at hospital, and he never seemed to wake up properly rested. Sharing a bed with Sybil was a great comfort to him, just knowing that she was there.
They'd often fall asleep cuddling one another, or spooning, or touching each other in some sense. It wasn't a possession thing (although there was that one time when a woman at work asked Tom out and Sybil got very protective over him), but more just that they each liked knowing that the other was there, nearby.
With the increased level of stress that Sybil had been enduring recently, she had stopped paying quite so much attention to other aspects of her life, Tom included. She hadn't been initiating sex recently (she'd even been rejecting it when Tom offered it), she hadn't been talking about her day over dinner as much, and most importantly, she had been sleeping as though Tom wasn't there.
Tom had only just realised that this was the reason he had been feeling down, so he'd not brought it up yet, but he was intending to. There was a risk he'd sound whiny, complaining that she wasn't giving him enough affection for his liking, but he knew that if he thought about it and phrased it carefully, Sybil would understand where he was coming from. But he had to do it when she wasn't tired and was in a relatively positive frame of mind. Just before they went to sleep was definitely not the time. It could wait until the morning.
Sybil was already in bed, just about finishing with scrolling through social media before turning her bedside light out and settling down to sleep, when Tom came in to get ready for bed. He changed out of his work clothes and got into bed beside Sybil, having a meaningless conversation about nothing important as he did.
Tom was tired, so turned out his light almost as soon as he'd got under the covers, and Sybil quickly followed suit. He was lying on his side, facing Sybil, and he could feel her move around to put her phone down and turn the light off. What he wasn't expecting was to feel Sybil wriggle back in bed until her back made contact with his chest. She was using him as a big spoon, a human pillow. He opened his eyes in the darkness and adjusted how he was lying so that he could wrap one arm around Sybil's torso, and lay the other under her head. She silently let him, using his biceps to rest her head, and taking one hand and locking her fingers with his, holding him close to her. She placed a single kiss on his arm before settling into his hold.
"I love you," she said very quietly.
Maybe she wasn't as stressed as she had been. Maybe she had realised that some physical affection would do them both good. Either way, she was beginning to return to her usual way of living with Tom, and he couldn't help but hold back a smile. This is exactly what he wanted, exactly what he needed. He'd been craving this.
He kissed the back of her shoulder where it joined her neck (a touch that always made her feel safe), and said, just as quietly as she had,
"I love you, too."
They fell asleep lying like that, their bodies gently pressed together, holding hands, and feeling once again like they were loved by each other. Things were only going to get better from here.