"Is this a new fetish, darling? Do I need to come and tuck you in like a naughty boy who's been up late reading under the covers?" Cai looked up from his laptop to find Ro lounging in the doorway that connected their two suites, wearing a burgundy robe sashed loosely at the waist to expose his hairy chest. He had a smile on his face, but it barely concealed the expression of tender concern that lurked behind the younger man's deep brown eyes. Cai smiled back, opening his mouth to respond before realizing that Ro's words had already slipped out of his exhausted mind.
That wasn't an entirely unusual occurrence for the couple; Cai had fallen very comfortably into the habit of drifting in and out of trance whenever he and Ro had a chance to spend time together away from anyone who might not know about the particular details of their romance and the unique kinks they indulged in. The intoxicating nearness of his lover often made Cai feel fuzzy and empty and dumb even without a formal instruction to do so, and Ro never passed up an opportunity to enjoy the pleasures of making his submissive plaything that much weaker and more helpless. But this wasn't the fun kind of exhaustion, and it definitely wasn't the fun kind of bleary-eyed forgetfulness.
"I, um, sorry," he muttered, his brain finally catching up with the conversation, "I... I'm headed to bed soon, I promise." Cai rubbed his bloodshot eyes and glanced down at the time--it said '1:47 AM', but given the time difference between Oslo and Tel Aviv, there was still a chance that Dorthea was awake and waiting for his latest research. Not much of a chance, admittedly, and he wasn't sure how much more research he had in him with his brain all gummed up and sticky with the residue of long-denied sleep, but he hated to go to bed with so much more left to do. They weren't even close to a diagnosis in the Espensen case. And he wasn't sure how much longer they could wait.
Ro crossed over to him, his bare feet padding soundlessly on the hotel carpet as he approached. Cai wanted to tell himself that was why he hadn't heard the younger man earlier, but he knew he'd be lying--he was simply too tired to focus on two things at once, and the laptop had drawn his attention completely away from his lover. "Oh, my sweet boy," Ro murmured softly, stroking his fingers down the nape of Cai's neck and eliciting a sensual shiver from Cai despite everything. "I don't often pull rank like this, but I do think this is one of those times when Master knows best. You can't do your best work when you're tired like this, and your best work is exactly what's needed here."
Cai bristled slightly, not so much because Ro was wrong as because he was very, very right--Cai had been pulling all-nighters ever since his very first internship, and he hated to admit that the days when he could power through exhaustion with nothing more than determination and a pot of strong Turkish coffee were almost certainly over. But he'd probably read the last paragraph three times in a row, desperately attempting to cram one more iota of information into his weary brain, and he had to confess he hadn't retained a single word of it. Right now Ro's gently stroking fingers on the back of his neck made more sense to him than an entire library of medical texts, and he couldn't deny it.