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Sometimes, it was a blessing that Clem had an incoherent sleep schedule.
They didn't tend to sleep at regular times - usually they were awake when Aventurine was, actually. He kept them updated on his schedule, so they could try and be awake when he was.
But, sometimes, they had things they needed to do.
Therefore, sometimes phe slept at strange times, sleeping when Aventurine was awake - sometimes phe slept for a long time as well, or took short naps. Phex had a job that allowed phex to set phel own hours, so phe could afford to do this. It was mostly appointments and such that got in the way of this.
Tonight was out of the ordinary.
Aventurine had woken up late into the night, finding himself unable to fall back asleep. The nightmare he'd woken up from had rattled him too much. He was tired, sure, and he had work in the morning - he knew he'd be tired, but he'd had plenty of days where he survived off of caffeine, today would just be another. He'd lost count long ago.
He'd brought his phone with him to the kitchen, for a snack, and while he sat at the table, he opened it up.
He noticed Clem’s messages first. They were always the highest priority in his notification settings.
Phe had sent him a couple of pieces of art, mainly. A fic, that he bookmarked for when he had the time to read it. And, he gave a quick response, to note that he'd seen the things and some of his opinions.
Only to near immediately get a response back.
“excuse me sir what are you doing awake at”
A small pause, which caused Aventurine to chuckle, as he knew phe was trying to figure out what time it was for him.
“3? in the morning?”
He took a moment to respond.
“4, actually. I'm home right now.
I can't say I have a good “excuse”, but I do have a reason.”
“nightmares again?”
Phe knew him too well.
He took a moment to check who was fronting - he'd had access to the app they used to keep track of it for a while.
He then sent his response.
“Yes.”
It was a simple response - and phe knew him well enough to know that he wouldn't want to go into detail about the contents of his nightmare.
“well, I'm here, babe. wide awake at that lmao. need some company? when do you have to go to work?”
“I've got a few hours. I'd love the company, Hawks.”
He knew they appreciated it when he called them by their proper names. Hawks didn't front as often as some others, but they'd talked a couple of times.
They got into a voice call - Aventurine giving a better frame of time of how long they'd be able to spend together.
They pulled up a Minecraft world they'd been working on. A wonderful distraction, that actually helped quite a lot.
“Thank you.” Aventurine stated, as he was working on something a bit more mindless - grinding for some materials.
“Huh? For playing Minecraft with you?” Hawks responded.
“Well, yes, but more for…distracting me.”
“Aw, babe. Of course. We're here for you, whenever we can be, y'know? We love you. We're happy to do what we can to help.”
They'd said it a few times - that they loved him. He hadn't been able to say it back really.
Phe understood, thoroughly. They'd talked it through. Phe didn't mind at all, phe knew it was difficult. Told him stories about how phe’d had a few situations where phe couldn't say it to someone phe were dating.
It still meant a lot to hear it.
“You're a treasure.”
He heard the little chuckle, clearly having flustered Hawks.
“You're one of our treasures too.”
It was one of the most important things to him. That Clem adored him as much as he did them.
Even being thousands of millions of light-years apart…they were invaluable to each other.