TW: Have some sleepy Sirs

Title: ~Jet Lag~

Flying almost halfway around the world was no one’s idea of fun, Ross thought to himself. Unless maybe you were rich enough to have a fancy jet and maybe enough alcohol or sedatives to negate the passage of time and space. They’d gotten to Seattle at what was apparently afternoon but felt like four in the morning. Zombified from the travel, they stumbled through getting themselves out of the airport and to a rather nice hotel. Which had to be a mistake, Ross thought for the hundredth time. He was half expecting a nicely dressed man to evict them at any moment. He didn’t want to think about the bill, though apparently the people they were there to meet were picking up the tab.

“I want a shower,”  Alex grumbled as he slung his bag onto a table. “I feel disgusting.” Ross gave him a little shove in the direction of what he thought was the bath. They had a pretty spacious suite with an enormous angular sofa in the sitting room. Through the open double doors he could see the bed in the next room, curtains wide open to the late sunlight. Somewhere out there was the city and the ocean. He dragged his suitcase into the bedroom and toes off his shoes and socks with relief. The carpet was plush and soft under his feet.

Back in the front room, Chris poked through the stack of things in the desk.

“Fuck going anywhere, let’s just order in.” He waved a room service menu at Ross with a slightly manic grin.

“It’s going to be outrageous,” Ross demurred.

“Don’t care.”  He stood on one foot, scratching the back of his calf with the other foot while he examined the menu book. “Are you hungry? Smith will be.”

“A little.” Ross shrugged and carried the bag of camera and computer bits over to the desk.

“Let’s just order,” whined Chris. “Do you want to try to drag him out somewhere? I don’t.”

“You’re right.”

"Actually I don’t want to drag you anywhere either. You look dead on your feet." Chris frowned in sympathy at the dark haired man’s expression.

Ross sighed and rubbed at his face, feeling almost a bit dizzy. He had sort of napped mid-flight but kept jerking awake with that disoriented feeling. All that recycled air and the miasma of other people crammed into an airplane, plus being cramped into window seat for hours and hours made it impossible to sleep.

“Smith?” Chris thumped the door. “We’re ordering food.” Ross could hear Alex’s muffled voice and the sound of the water as Chris barged in to read the menu out loud to the man in the shower. Feeling as if he would just collapse if he stopped moving too long, Ross shuffled back into the bedroom carrying discarded hoodies and bags. He stared at the crisply made bed with the mounds of pillows and thought about just collapsing. Instead he hunted for the key card envelope and its password for the hotel wi-fi. It was easier to just use his phone than fussing with the adapter for the laptop.

By the time he made it back out of the bedroom, Chris was on the phone ordering food. He made some incomprehensible hand gesture that Ross took to mean he was asking for an order.

“Burger?” Ross wandered to the windows and squinted outside.

“Yeah, we’ll have the pasta and the steak and the lamb chops,” Chris ordered. Ross turned his head, making a face. “Uh, yeah just some water… yeah, potato or veg or whatever, that’s fine. Yeah. Yeah. Uh, medium rare? No. Cool. Thanks.”

“Trott,” he groaned. “What the hell.”

“We’re already ordering ridiculously expensive room service, we might as well eat nice food.”

Ross snorted inelegantly. Chris dug his laptop out to check up on the meetings they had planned for tomorrow. Swaying back and forth just a bit, Ross admired the view of the city and felt grateful that they didn’t have to go talk to anyone or go anywhere tonight.

“What are you staring at?” Alex asked from behind him. He rested one warm arm on Ross’ shoulders, still radiating heat from his shower. Barefoot in new jeans and one of Ross’ favorite long sleeve shirts he looked immensely more awake than Ross felt.

“Nothing,” the dark haired man answered in a zoned out voice. He gestured at the view, the strange city below them.

“Hmmm.” Alex smelled like soap and hot water and clean clothes. It made Ross want to take a shower too. American hotels had big bathrooms and endless hot water. That sounded pretty nice.

A knock on the door made him wonder again if someone was going to kick them out of this obviously just too nice hotel. It was only room service though, bringing in their excessive dinner.

“Where’s the remote?” Chris poked around until he figured out how to turn on the television. Ross watched him stand there, flipping through channel after channel.

“Oh, Gladiator!” Alex lifted both thumbs in approval.

“Alright you nerd.” Chris shrugged and dropped the remote on the table. When he sat down, he shifted one of Ross’ legs out of the way so he could lean back on the dark hair man’s chest.

“Comfy there?” Ross asked a bit sarcastically.

“Just,” Chris grunted, elbowing his way up fractionally. He sighed with contentment and patted his stomach. “There. Better.” Ross nuzzled the top of his head, amusement tugging a smile from his lips.

“Excellent idea mate.” Alex wriggled his way between Chris’ knees despite his protests and adopted a similar pose in the lap of the shorter brunet. He grumbled under his breath, but wrapped his arms loosely around Alex’s shoulders.

"Move your head." Chris nudged Alex’s head to the left.

"It’s caught in my hair, ow!" Alex whined as he untangled a still damp curl from the buttons at the collar of the other man’s shirt.

“Are we all settled now? Good. Now shut up and watch the movie.” Ross shifted a little, bringing his knee up and digging one foot between the cushions. He felt Alex’s fingers brush his bare skin.

“Don’t you even tickle me Smith or I’ll dump both of you on the floor.”

“Aww, Ross.” Alex laughed. But his teasing stopped and his fingers settled peaceably on his ankle, thumb rubbing in little circles.

Ross thought maybe he dozed during the movie. It seemed over so fast. He was about to suggest Alex reach for the remote when he heard the faint snore. The taller man was fast asleep, head drifting to the side. His grip on Ross’ ankle was slack, fingers still. Chris murmured something unintelligible to Ross’ whisper, also apparently not awake.

“Shit,” Ross murmured in a voice full of tender exasperation. He watched the credits roll, and some new movie start. He was too tired to figure out what it was and he didn’t exactly care. He fished his phone out of his pocket. On his chest, Chris muttered and stirred.

“What?” he asked in a voice heavy with sleep.

“Nothing,” Ross hushed. He rubbed his knuckles through the other man’s hair, along the curve of his ear down to his jaw until the shorter man settled back down. Ross watched the other two, the steady rise and fall of their chests in the flickering television light. Still absently petting Chris, he started reading the entire day of Twitter he’d ignored. At some point, he would have to get up and drag everyone to bed. Sleeping on the sofa would make Chris cranky and sore, and he wanted a shower. But not yet, he reasoned. Ross yawned, eyes half open. Maybe in another twenty minutes. This was the most comfortable he’d felt in twenty four hours and he wanted to enjoy it just a little longer.