All he wants to do is sleep.

"Jesse, Jesus, man, can't we call it a night already? Come on, man, let's go to bed."

Pretty blue eyes sparkle with annoyance, or maybe they're just glazed over with sleep. It's late, late, late. The kind of hideous, god-forsaken, why-am-I-still-awake hour that feels like it will never, ever end. He can feel the hours pressing against the back of his eyes, until he just might cry, but he can't walk away.

"I can't leave it like this. It isn't good enough. This, this is shit," Jesse spits. Or tries to; the darkness swallows the venom in his voice, leaving it a tired whisper.

"And you're making a whole lot of progress right now," Vinny responds drolly. "How much tape have you gone through on this one song?" He's frustrated, exhausted beyond words; all the hours clinking into place behind his voice, rattling inside the question like a broken slot machine. "You're gonna tear your throat up and then we're gonna have to take a week off, that's a hell of a lot worse than coming back tomorrow."

But Jesse talks right over all his reasonable points. "I can do this," the singer insists. "If I go to sleep before I get it down I'll lose it. I know what's...I just can't quite..."

He gives a shaky laugh, all caffeine and paper cuts, playing with the levels on the sound board until the tracks warp and clash in a riot of noise and Vinny cringes and cuts the power.

Jesse's laughter spikes, becomes hysterical. The agony of sleeplessness.

"Jess, you're going crazy." Vinny doesn't sound scared, or even worried; he's far, far beyond that. He's already passed the stage where he's pondered whether killing Jesse would allow him to sleep, or if the hassle of butchering him and disposing of the body would just waste time. "It's--" Jesus, what time is it? From the depths of his cargoes Vinny produces a watch, and the clean-sweeping hands seem drawn up in a smirk. "It's 4:16, for fuck's sake. We've been here for twenty-two hours. I'm tired, my fingers hurt, your voice is shot--we're not going to get anything else done tonight."

"Look, if you, fucking, if you don't want to help, then just, just go to bed, whatever, okay?" Too spent to even work out a response that stings, his smooth tongue is stumbling over the words, flinging them farther and farther away from his meaning. "Why don't you just go? Steve and Jase left hours ago, just leave with them, why didn't you, if you're so fucking..."

Because I knew you'd still be here, obsessing, trying to do everything yourself. Driving yourself crazy. He doesn't say it; Jesse's pride wouldn't survive. Instead he says the first thing that comes to mind, which turns out to be, "Look, are you hungry? There's a kitchenette in the back, I'm going to make a sandwich."

Jesse stares at him like he's lost his mind. "What?" Blue eyes blink, sweep the room, come to rest on him again, shiny with incomprehension. Or maybe that's delirium. "A sandwich? Vin, how the fuck--"

"We had dinner at six, Jess. That was 10 hours ago. I'm hungry. Don't make me out to be the weirdo. You fucking psycho."

And just as Vinny predicted, for some weird reason this makes Jesse laugh. "Fine. Fine. Go make me a fucking sandwich, Mr. Accardi."

"I prefer Chef Vincent, thank you," Vin counters in his best stuffy British accent, which is about the saddest thing Jesse's ever heard. "And come with me. You need a break."

"This song..." Jesse protests, splaying his fingers over the controls.

"Can wait. It's not like you're being productive anyway, you've recorded six takes and they all suck."

"They do not!" An indignant shriek, but it gets Jesse to his feet. Vin's fingers wrap around his wrist and he smiles sheepishly as he allows the guitarist to drag him to the kitchen like a small boy. "They don't suck. They're just...not, um..."

"Good?" Vinny offers sweetly, and ducks a swat. He pads barefoot into the kitchenette, cold linoleum sucking the heat from his skin. To call it even a 'kitchenette' is really doing too much; there's a mini-fridge and a coffee machine, a basket of bagels and potato chips and other snack-ish things, and someone has brought a plug-in frying pan. Vinny finds a block of cheese and a nub of butter in the mini-fridge and snags four pieces of Wonderbread from the basket, all the ingredients to a gourmet grilled cheese.

A lengthy search produces a plastic knife, and after a few clumsy attempts Jesse manages to shave off a few lopsided slices of cheddar and arrange them on the bread. Vin is heating butter in a pan that must be at least as old as they are and nearly rusted-through. There's a towel hanging from the handle of one cupboard and Vinny ties it around his waist like an apron, grinning despite Jesse's assurances that he looks 'fucking retarded.'

He slowly introduces the first sandwich to the melted butter, sliding it down until it sits in the middle of the pan, sizzling enticingly. His stomach rumbles as the edges of the bread curl up and turn golden. After a few abortive attempts to use the knife as a spatula, Vinny gives up and uses his fingers to turn the sandwich, reaching into the frying pan to pick it up and promptly burning his fingers on the searing metal.

"MOTHERFUCKER!"

Jesse braces himself against the counter and laughs his ass off while Vinny glares at him with an injured expression. "Asshole," Vinny swears, punching Jesse in the ribs with his unharmed hand and provoking another burst of laughter.

"You know what, you make your own damn sandwich." Vinny seethes and begins to stomp off, only to be stopped halfway by Jesse's arms wrapped around his waist, holding him in place. He doesn't struggle much, willing to be mollified, just stands there looking sulky and bitter with his bottom lip pouting out until Jesse swallows his laughter and grins.

"I'm sorry," Jesse apologizes, in a tone that struggles for sincerity and falls a little short. "I wasn't laughing at you." Vinny snorts indelicately. "I wasn't! It's just--" and here Jesse's baby blue eyes flash with laughter, and he threatens to dissolve into giggles again, "--it's just so late, and I'm so tired, and you're so cute when you're pissed off."

"I am not fucking cute," Vinny refutes, horrified, baring his teeth at Jesse's chuckle. "Let's see how cute you think I am when we get home," he threatens, smirking just a little. Jesse's eyes widen with mock horror and he gathers Vinny's injured hand in both of his, putting on a dramatized show of remorse.

"I'm sorry," he repents, bringing the burned fingers to his lips for a gentle kiss. "I didn't mean to laugh at you. You're obviously hurt and it's just awful." Despite himself Vinny laughs, drawing a sly smile from the blue-eyed vocalist. "I feel so terrible." Jesse's lips part against Vinny's fingers and his tongue flicks out to swipe gently at the tips. "Isn't there anything I can do to make it up to you?" The tip of his tongue soothes the scorched pads of his fingers as he draws them into his mouth, sucking lightly, and then, encouraged by Vinny's hitch in breathing, with more pressure.

"I, um." A little hitch cuts off his words and he rolls his eyes, annoyed by Jesse's obvious power over him and amused all the same. "I'm sure I can think of something," he mumbles. He withdraws his fingers with a shaky breath and replaces them with his lips, puffing warm breath into Jesse's mouth in a tiny laugh. He feels the mouth against his curl into a smile and then they're both laughing, softly and with an edge of mania, their lips never parting. Laughing and kissing, hands clasped at their sides, the sandwich starting to smoke and burn in the frying pan. It would be just their luck to set the studio on fire, the perfect end to a really hideous night. Vinny imagines the look on Steve and Jason's faces when they hear the news, and then he imagines them both warm and asleep in bed, and he thinks, you bastards. Because all. He fucking. Wants. Is sleep.

Jesse presses a last quick kiss to his lips and pulls back, dragging him back into the recording room. "C'mon," he urges, "it's just a few more hours." Vinny forms protests in his mind and curses Jesse's stubborn determination, but in the end he lets Jesse pull him along. He's so tired he can't even feel his feet. He needs sleep like water, like a shotgun, like the cheese sandwich burning in the frying pan. Jesse unplugs the pan and says something that makes him laugh.

But if he can't sleep, you know, then there's really no other place he'd rather be.

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