"What are you doing?"
Nick spun around, spoon in hand, looking like a rabbit caught in headlights.
"Oh," he glanced around the destroyed kitchen innocently before looking back to Jeff. "Making cookies. Can't you tell?"
The blonde raised his eyebrows. "Actually? No."
Nick grinned before turning back to the bench to keep stirring the mixture.
Jeff straightened from where he was leaning against the doorway and took a few slow steps into the room. "Perhaps the better question is why are you making cookies at - " he glanced at the clock on the oven - "two thirty-six in the morning?"
"Couldn't sleep."
"Right. You know, most people count sheep when they can't sleep."
Nick laughed and then grinned at Jeff, who'd moved to stand beside him. "Yeah, well, I got to twenty-seven and got bored."
"That's kind of the point. It makes you fall asleep."
Nick grinned and Jeff bumped his shoulder with his own. "Idiot."
There was silence for a moment as Nick added the last half a cup of milk and Jeff raised an eyebrow when he tossed in a whole packet of chocolate chips. "Won't your parents wake up?"
"Nah," Nick shook his head, "they got used to my weird habits years ago. I always cook in the middle of the night."
"You've been holding out on me. All these years you could've been making me nice treats and yet you haven't."
Nick spooned the mixture onto a baking tray. "That's because I never have trouble sleeping at school, so there's no time to."
"You can sleep at school, but not at home? How did I end up befriending the weirdest guy in the school?"
Nick laughed, licking the mixture off one of his fingers. "Your luck, I suppose."
"So why can't you sleep? Was I snoring?"
"No," Nick rolled his eyes, "for once." He sighed. "Tomorrow's Easter, and the whole family will be here."
"I thought you got on with your family."
"I do. For the most part. It's just that they're all very...focused. They'll be expecting me to have my whole life planned out. I can't even work out what electives I want to take next term, and they're going to be asking what I want to do at university, where I want to live, what sort of dog I want to own."
Jeff supressed a grin. "Really?"
"Alright, maybe not the last one. But its always the same questions. I guess I just feel like the disappointment of the family."
"Well, if it makes you feel any better, I also have no clue what I want to do."
Nick smiled. "Yeah, it sort of does."
They both laughed, the sound ricocheting of the walls of the large, newly-renovated kitchen.
Jeff knew the pressure Nick would be facing. His brother was, after all, at one of the most presitigous universities in the country. But they had time. There was still the rest of the year and then the whole summer to work it out.
"Well, I actually came down for a glass of water." He washed his hands in the sink. "But seeing as I'm wide awake, is there anything I can do to help?"
Nick smiled across at his best friend and pushed the bowl of mixture so that it was in reach for both of them. "Sure is. Dig in."
Jeff grinned, picking up a blob of the sticky mixture in his hands.
There would be time to sleep later.