Note: This takes place well after the existing series; Michael and Paul are around 30, here.

Sidewalk Hobo

When he was eighteen and, well, let’s just say “eager”, Paul would have laughed at the idea of himself turning down sex for homework. More often than not, “reward” turned to “incentive”, which became downright “procrastination”, and in the morning Paul would drag himself out of bed and type frantically while Michael lounged in the blankets and looked annoyingly smug and satisfied – but it was always worth it.

Now he was thirty, gritting his teeth, and wishing for a heavy object to fall from the ceiling and land on his husband’s head. “Stop it.” Paul kept his gaze fixed on the screen, though he glanced every so often at the stack of books and notes piled far too precariously for his liking. But he didn’t have time to fix them now.

Michael brushed aside the few strands that had slipped from Paul’s hair clip and kissed his neck again. “You should take a break.”

“I don’t have time for a break!” Paul twisted out of Michael’s reach, still typing. He paused, peering at the mass of scribbles that occurred whenever his swirling cursive became rushed. The hearts on top of his i’s looked like potatoes. “I don’t have time for food. Just buy an IV and stick it into me. You can go watch porn or something.”

“You’re on the computer,” Michael said, his voice infuriatingly mild. Paul wanted to stomp on his foot, but that would mean he’d have to move. Maybe he could wheel the desk chair backwards really fast or something. “And the kids are home.”

“Then poor you will have to figure out something else to do because as you see I am busy!” Paul’s typing grew more and more agitated until he was sure the key clacks could be heard downstairs.

Michael chuckled. It wasn’t a nice sound. It was the kind of sound that the villain in a movie made when the hero got some major detail wrong about the master plan. “You realize you wouldn’t be having this problem if you’d finished the manuscript in advance.”

Paul repeated the sentence in a high-pitched voice complete with a stupid face, the kind his little brothers used to use when they were six and didn’t like what he’d just said. Michael snorted. “Wow. That’s mature.”

“I don’t care about being mature!” His voice was high again, but this time cracking with near hysteria. “I have a manuscript whose deadline is a month sooner than I thought it was; my getting tenure depends on this book being really really brilliant; and instead of helping me by bringing me coffee or that IV or giving me a neck rub my husband can only think about having sex!! And you want me to be mature?!”

“Okay, okay, sorry.” Michael’s voice sounded like backpedaling. Paul felt hands on his neck again and tensed automatically, but Michael didn’t try to make the massage anything but a business-like one. He didn’t relax, but stopped stiffening actively. “I just think a break would be good for you.”

Paul snorted. His pinky finger hurt from hitting ‘backspace’ so many times and he could no longer feel his wrists. “Believe me, it would be the worst sex ever. Even worse than that time we both went for each other’s weak spots to try to make the other bottom and we ended up both too useless to do anything.”

Michael laughed into Paul’s hair. “At least that was funny.”

“This won’t be funny. This will be like the Hindenburg. Without the fire.”

“So we’ll crash into each other and fall over.” Michael found a knot right at the base of Paul’s skull and worked it with his thumb.

“Gosh darn it, Michael, don’t question my similes when I’m up against a deadline!”

Too late Paul realized he probably shouldn’t have phrased the sentence that way when Michael was horny, but thankfully the redhead let it pass. “Never mind the simile. No sex. Just time away from the keyboard; it doesn’t have to be long.”

“No time.” Paul shook his head; his neck made an agonizing cracking noise and he decided he was quite comfortable writing with his head stuck to the side like that. Michael blew out his breath in disgust and tried to work out the kink. “I know you don’t understand. You write your manuscripts months in advance and it’s disgusting. Like people who do Christmas shopping in July and laugh at everyone in December.”

“Paul. Honey.” Michael cupped Paul’s face from behind and rubbed thumbs in circles behind his ears. “You’re babbling, and it’s showing in your draft. You need to stop, even just for ten minutes.”

“What?” Paul sat upright, spine crunching. He peered at the screen but could see nothing amiss. “What’s wrong with the draft? It looks fine to me!”

Michael nudged Paul’s right arm out of the way and took the mouse, highlighting the last few sentences Paul had written. He rested his chin on the top of Paul’s head as he read aloud: If we examine the cadences in that work of Schubert’s the really good one that I’m too tired to look up where the melody goes whooop! up like that and then down --

“I didn’t write that.” Paul’s eyes widened. “Tell me I didn’t –“ He examined the chunk of white-on-black and groaned, banged his head off the keyboard while the computer beeped in protest. “I did. I’m going to lose my grant. They’ll take away my professorship, never mind tenure, and I’ll have to live on the sidewalk in a box out of shame. I’ll have to put a bag on my head so the children will forget they ever had a father who was this much of a failure –“

“Okay,” Michael said again, drawing out the ‘o’ as he pulled Paul up by the arm. “I won’t be married to a sidewalk hobo, and I won’t divorce you so you can become one. Rest. Now.”

“Nooooooo,” Paul whined, scrabbling in the air toward the desk as Michael dragged him out of his office and back to he bedroom. “I need to work! Think of the paper bags!”

They passed the twins in the hallway, both girls wide-eyed and struck speechless. “It’s okay,” Michael said, “Daddy’s gone crazy but we’re making him take a nap. It’ll be fine; go back downstairs. I don’t want you to see when I have to hit him on the head.”

Aurora jumped, and Cassandra sprinted forward to latch her arms around Michael’s waist. “Don’t hit Daddy on the head!” She burst into tears. “Don’t hurt him ‘cause he’s crazy!”

“Oh dear God.” Michael stopped and let go of Paul with one arm, tousling Cassie’s hair with the other. “Sweetheart, I was kidding. He’s just going to sleep.” Paul used the distraction to try to lunge away, but Michael grunted and caught him again.

“Oh.” Cassie sniffled and untangled herself, staring up at them with wet eyes. Paul wondered if she’d still look at him like that when he was abandoned on the front walk. Maybe she’d be the one to take pity and bring him stale cookies to gnaw on, or a mug of chai when it rained.

“Does Daddy want soup?” Rory piped up, twisting a dirty blonde curl around her finger. “I can get Robbie and he can make some.”

“Yes. That would be very nice. You two can make the toast.” Michael finally gave up on trying to drag Paul and hefted him over his shoulder instead. Paul concentrated on being the most difficult sack of potatoes as possible, slumping deadweight and banging his head against the small of Michael’s back.

“I could divorce you over this,” Michael declared, dumping Paul on the bed and sitting on his stomach. “No judge could blame me. But then you’d just live your poor-me homeless little life and no one would feed you or make sure your socks matched.”

“You’re cruel.” Paul struggled, shoving at Michael with both arms, but the days of desperate typing had taken their toll, and pain shot through his wrists. He yelped. “I’ll never sleep!” He shouted, writhing. “Just to spite you. I’ll shoot caffeine pills and buy that caffeinated soap and I won’t –“

When he woke up, there were plastic bags full of melting ice held around his wrists with rubber bands, and the thermos on the bedside table smelled suspiciously like cream of mushroom. A post-it note was stuck to the thermos, with the words, “I told you so.”

“Shut up,” Paul said to the paper. “Traitor.” He sat up, and the damp cloth on his forehead fell into his lap. “Ungh,” he said.

Rory sat next to the bed, swinging her legs and reading Nancy Drew. “Daddy said not to let you up until you’d slept for two hours.”

Paul felt like he should complain, but his muscles did feel less achy and the soup smelled inviting. He reached for it and took a sip, discovering it tasted just as good. He gulped it down and burned his tongue. “How long has it been?”

The six-year-old glanced at the analogue clock on the wall, pinching her lips together and rolling them. “Um…”

“Come on, you can do it,” Paul encouraged without thinking. He finished the rest of the soup at a more leisurely pace. “Where was the little hand when Daddy told you that?”

“At the three,” Rory said, then grinned. “Oh! It’s past the five now!”

“Good girl.” Paul smiled at her and stood up. He didn’t ask if she’d been here the whole time; she had the book in her hand, and that was answer enough. They’d already gotten calls home from her teacher, who had complained of not being able to rouse her from her book at the end of reading time.

“Did you really go crazy?” Rory asked as they made their way downstairs. “I couldn’t tell. Daddy said not to worry ‘cause you did it to yourself.”

Paul rolled his eyes. “Daddy is a jerkface, and you can tell him I said so.”

“Daddy may be a jerkface, but he’s still right.” Michael grinned at them from the bottom step. He kissed Aurora’s forehead, then patted her back and sent her on her way. “You needed the sleep,” he told Paul sternly.

“Except now I’ve got two hours gone, and I have to rewrite who knows how much that I did while I was delirious –“

The corner of Michael’s mouth quirked. “Don’t worry, I already did that. It was all in your notes, and you can fix it after you send it to the editor anyway, if you’re that worried about the moral aspect.”

“Oh.” Paul blinked a few times. “I guess I love you again, then. Unless – what do I owe you?”

“Come to bed tonight.”

“Michael –!”

“I said ‘to’, not ‘in’,” Michael said, winking.

Paul rolled his eyes. “You’re so crude when you’re trying to be persuasive. Fine. If I get this chapter done, then I’ll sleep, but only if, okay?”

“Believe me; your students will thank you.” Michael leaned forward and kissed him, quickly. Paul muttered random uncomplimentary things but didn’t pull away.

“So how bad was that last section?” Paul asked him, following Michael to the kitchen and (more importantly) the coffeemaker. “Not-paying-attention bad? Need-more-sleep bad?”

Michael shot him a look. “Try first year science student in required English course bad.”

Paul groaned. Michael cut him off with another kiss. “But I fixed it; it’s fine. Don’t worry about it.”

“Will you still love me when I’m living on the sidewalk?” Paul hitched himself up onto the counter and waited for the coffee to percolate, willing it to drip faster by staring.

“Yes.” Michael rolled his eyes. “In fact, we’ll sneak into a refrigerator warehouse and steal all the boxes and make a village, and we’ll all live in there with you.”

“Can I tell Mrs. Flannigan that I live in a box house?” Cassie asked, rounding the corner and struggling with the jars of pasta sauce she’d brought up from the freezer. “All th’ other kids’ll be jealous. I bet they’ll wanna come play.”

“Certainly,” Michael said cheerily, relieving her of her burden. Paul chuckled a little as Cassie danced around the kitchen, waving her hands and hissing ‘cold jars, cold jars’. “And when the child service people come to take you away, they’ll get caught in our cardboard booby traps.”

Paul glared at him. “I take it back,” he said. “I hate you. I’m taking all the coffee and I’m going to write until this stupid thing is finished because you made fun of me and that’ll show you!” He snatched the coffeepot off its little stand and stalked upstairs.

Michael watched him go and stifled a laugh into the back of his hand. “You just have to humour him until he gets cross,” he told their daughter. “It’s a good trick. Remember it.”

She pouted. “Does that mean we won’t live in a box village?”

“’Fraid so,” Michael said, tugging the end of her braid. “But tell you what, this weekend we’ll call up Uncle Pete and he’ll make you one in the backyard. Okay?”

“Okay!”

Upstairs, oblivious, Paul sat down to type. He was rested, he was fed, he was caffeinated – but more importantly, he was cranky. This stupid manuscript was going down; that would teach them all to mock his cruel plight.

That night, Michael considered it a great victory over temptation that he didn’t say “I told you so” when Paul collapsed beside him in bed, giggling only semi-hysterically in triumph. He just rolled over and held the blankets open.