#midnight snacks | Explore Tumblr posts and blogs

dsudis · 2 years ago

Text

Such a Gorgeous Sight

Written for @domaystic day 31: midnight snack! Featuring Dream, and Hob, and a midnight snack. (Not even innuendo, just snacking.)

Title of course from "Friday I'm in Love" by The Cure.

Dream woke up in darkness, as he often did. He had been dreaming—not a pleasant dream but not anything he would call a nightmare. No matter how often he reminded his successor that he need not be so gentle with him, the dreams he had about the difficulties and indignities of his new human life were always... manageable.

Tonight he had been dreaming about needing to do laundry. There had been several baskets of dirty clothes, his and Hob's mingled together. No matter how Dream tried to sort them into correct loads, there had always been more different colors of things lurking in each basket. It had been frustrating and confusing and tediously neverending, and then he had pulled one of Hob's favorite old t-shirts out and realized that he could ask Hob to help him with the sorting when he got home. Hob wouldn't be angry with him; Hob would always help.

Dream had woken up on that consoling note, and now he was wide awake and thinking about the actual laundry.

Hob had a tendency to put off doing the washing and yesterday he had declared "laundry bankruptcy" and called the New Inn's laundry service to ask them to also pick up several bags of his—their personal laundry. It was something that he evidently did not-infrequently, given that he already had the requisite laundry sacks in his closet, and he had been mildly rueful but not at all upset about it.

Dream had felt bad about it. He was capable of doing laundry; he ought to have noticed that Hob didn't like it and picked up the slack. It was something he could contribute.

He was... fairly certain he could contribute that. Hob really wouldn't get annoyed with him if he tried and then needed help. He would probably be pleased to be reminded about the existence of the laundry. After a few tries Dream would doubtless be able to manage it.

Dream rolled over onto his side to look at Hob, who was still fast asleep beside him. He liked watching Hob sleep, which was convenient because he often woke in the night and couldn't immediately get back to sleep. Watching Hob was rarely helpful in that endeavor; he had to stop watching Hob to quiet himself back toward sleep.

But he could watch for a while, first. Perhaps it would turn out that this was the very end of the night's darkness, and the sky outside the window would lighten and Hob would wake up and smile at him. Perhaps Dream would not need to turn away from him and shut his eyes and submit himself to another dream tonight.

He could not really see much of Hob in the dark, just familiar shapes and shadows. Hob was lying on his back, not quite snoring but making a little burr of a noise on every second or third breath which Dream found unreasonably endearing.

Dream could feel his mind quieting as he lay and watched Hob sleep, his anxious frustration about both waking and dreaming laundry ebbing away. This was the part that mattered, the part that was true and real: he and Hob were together in the most intimate and vulnerable parts of their lives. They shared their rest, their refuge, their stillness, and to this still point they would always return. The rest was merely logistics.

Dream reached out a hand, close enough to feel the radiating warmth of Hob's body without accidentally startling him awake. He closed his eyes, hoping now that he would stay awake a little longer in this perfect moment, this dark soft quietude.

As if on cue, his stomach twisted on emptiness, and awareness of hunger promptly eclipsed all the peace he had felt an instant before.

Dream turned over in bed and peered at the clock on his nightstand. It was meant for small children, but it worked just as well for Dream, who had no better luck making sense of numerical times than did children who had not yet learned their numbers. It did not show numbers at all; it showed an indication of the meaning of the current time.

Currently it showed the moon and stars that meant night: time for sleeping. There was no hint of the appearance of the sun which would indicate morning: time to be awake. Dream watched it for a while, hoping that the sun would make an appearance—the soft blue-purple of the moon and stars would start to fade into a brighter blue before the orange of the sun became visible.

The indigo of the moon and stars remained stubbornly the same, and Dream's stomach did not quiet either.

He needed to go back to sleep, and he wouldn't be able to until he got up and ate something. He muffled a noise of vexation into his pillow, and then sat up, shoving the covers back somewhat too emphatically as he did so.

Hob awoke with a snort and sat up as well. "All right, love?"

Dream felt a mingled frustration and fondness, but he was near enough to that sleepy still moment of communion to let the latter win. He leaned over and tipped his head against Hob's shoulder, and as automatically as a reflex, Hob tipped his head against Dream's and put an arm around Dream's shoulders.

"I'm hungry," Dream said with a sigh. "I can't get back to sleep."

"Mm," Hob said, squeezing him around the shoulders. "Want something warm?"

Dream nodded against Hob's shoulder, and did not either ask Hob to fix it for him or tell Hob he could manage by himself.

"Mm, could do with something myself, now I'm awake," Hob said. He pressed a kiss to Dream's forehead and then moved away to get out of bed. Dream followed suit, shrugging into his dressing gown while Hob merely stretched and made for the bedroom door wearing nothing but the boxers he'd fallen asleep in.

Hob tended to run warm; Dream did not.

Dream followed Hob to the kitchen, where Hob immediately went to the refrigerator for milk and then located a saucepan. "Cocoa?"

"Yes, please," Dream said, considering the possibilities for a solid snack to accompany it. He spotted the paper bag on the counter, holding the last of the bagels from the Proper Bagel Place Hob had taken him to a couple of days ago, pointing out the crucial identifying features—closed on Saturdays, faded picture of a venerable old rabbi framed on the wall behind the counter, only sold bagels and a few accompaniments.

The bagels would be best toasted now, and would be challenging to slice, but Dream rolled back his sleeves and fetched the bread knife. Hob had shown him the way of it—fingers and thumb here and here, knife below the opposite hand and cutting away from it toward the bench, start slowly. He bit his lip, following the steps with painstaking precision, carefully choosing his place to cut to make two even halves.

He smiled down at the halves of the bagel when they fell open onto the bench, and there was a low whistle from Hob's direction—less than a yard away in the little kitchen, within quick reach of both Dream and the first aid kit stowed under the sink. But neither had been necessary tonight; Dream had done the thing himself.

He looked over at Hob with a smile and said, "Bagel?"

Hob grinned. "Yes, please."

Dream took the last one out of the bag and cut it just as neatly as the first, and then placed all four halves in the glass-fronted toaster oven. This was another new addition to the kitchen: Dream could simply watch things turn brown and take them out when they looked finished, instead of having to wait for a toaster to pass its inscrutable time.

With Hob as backup, Dream felt confident enough to fetch butter and cream cheese and a plate before returning to peer at the bagels, which showed no signs of being toasted yet. Hob was still peering drowsily down at the saucepan, the light over the stove falling golden on his dark head. He was slouching a bit, his bared belly rounding out gently over the top of his boxers, and Dream wanted to kiss every soft part of his beloved; more than that, he wanted to make him a good snack and take him back to bed.

This was also a kind of stillness. This too was a part of that quiet connectedness, waiting together in the dark.

"I love you," Dream said softly.

Hob glanced over, not at all startled, already smiling warmly before his eyes met Dream's. "Love you too," he said, and then rummaged in a drawer and passed Dream a butterknife.

Dream huffed softly and got the cocoa mix out of the cupboard, passing it to Hob before he returned to watching the bagels.

The stillness of waiting soon turned into a dance of practicalities—getting out the toasted bagels as Hob stirred chocolate into the heated milk. Dream hissed and stuck a burned finger into his mouth but got on with distributing butter and cream cheese onto the bagel halves while Hob was pouring cocoa into mugs.

They sat together on stools drawn up to the kitchen bench, shoulders pressed together, eating and drinking in silence. Dream had eaten one entire bagel half and drunk most of his cocoa when Hob noticed him gingerly crooking his burned finger. Hob caught Dream's hand and inspected the little pink line, then brushed his lips over it. "Want something for that?"

Dream shook his head. The sharp small pain of it was already fading, and he was growing sleepy again now that his stomach was feeling warm and full. "Want to go back to sleep."

Hob kissed Dream's finger and released his hand, returning to his own bagel and cocoa, eating and drinking in a businesslike fashion while Dream sipped and nibbled and leaned ever more heavily into Hob.

"Go on," Hob muttered, when Dream was down to the last bit of his bagel. "One last big bite, love, and then back to bed. You know I love watching you eat."

Dream rolled his eyes, but gave Hob the most sultry look he could manage while shoving the last of a bagel topped with cream cheese into his mouth. Hob wiped the corner of Dream's mouth clean with his thumb, licking away cream cheese while watching Dream chew.

As soon as Dream swallowed Hob leaned in for a kiss, as warm and soft and simple as the rest of it.

Then there was nothing but leaving all the dishes in the sink for the morning and Hob towing him back to bed by the hand, as if Dream might get lost on the way. They settled in together, and as the darkness and quiet deepened around them again, Dream thought that no interrupted sleep could have been more restorative than this midnight waking.

[this fic is also on Ao3!]

#fic #dreamling #the sandman #domaystic2023 #midnight snacks #softest sleepiest loves

153 notes · View notes

stone-cold-groove · 5 months ago

Text

The midnight raid!

#vintage illustration #food #refrigerators #vintage refrigerators #late night snacks #midnight snacks

10 notes · View notes

silentmagi · 2 months ago

Text

Tikki Wants Cookies

In the middle of the night, Tikki wants cookies, and there's none to be found… and yet there is one solution she could try.

Ao3

Tikki had a problem.

No, it wasn’t an Akuma, or Plagg related. Instead it was something much worse. It was terrible, horrible, and utterly unthinkable.

Tikki was out of cookies, and everyone else at the sleepover was sleeping. They still had half of Ratatouille left, so they were supposed to stay up and gossip. Fine, it might be best if Marinette catches up on sleep after defeating Hawkmoth and all the stress she’d been dealing with. But Alya and Trixx should have stayed up with her at least!

It wasn’t fair that her having stayed up until all hours for the past few months left her wide awake. She didn’t deserve to be punished like this, and denied her rightfully earned cookies. She should have nothing but mountains of cookies to devour at any time of day or night. The five plates she had were not enough.

Trying to watch the movie with the rumbling of her poor underfed tummy reminding her of the denied delicious sweet treats, she found herself jealous of Remy. He got to cook, and even could pilot his human so he could make bigger foods. It was too bad she couldn’t pilot Marinette like that, she mused as she tugged playfully at one of the pig tails she wore her hair in.

Then she saw an arm move.

No, it had to be a fluke, but what if it wasn’t? Peeking around, she saw that Marinette was still sleeping, and decided to try again. Giving another experimental tug, she found that the hand moved again.

A tug of another section of hair moved the foot this time, which caused Tikki to grin. It was a wide, broad grin as a wonderfully delightful thought occurred. She could not bake enough cookies, not with as small as she was… but Marinette… Oh Marinette could! She just needed guidance from a wise, ancient, beautiful, if tiny god of creation.

She was just such a humble and hungry entity.

If this worked for cookies, maybe she could ensure that Marinette made it to class on time for once.

But that was a side benefit she’d talk to Marinette about, for now it was time for the important task of making cookies. Let’s see, tugging these clumps moved the legs, and these were the arms, so she would just need to do, YES! She was standing up now. Careful, no, no no, don’t step on Alya. Yes, gentle, very gentle, and the other foot… good.

Getting across the room to the hatch to the main floor, she didn’t notice that Trixx and Alya were watching the pair of them, Alya rubbing her hand where she’d been kicked, while Trixx stroked his tail with a pout to his lips.

She was a bit busy controlling the Marimech to not fall down the ladder.

After only two close encounters of the wall-kind, she was able to get Marinette into the kitchen of the apartment. Grabbing the cookbook from its spot, she piloted Marinette to flip open to the right section, and read the title over her shoulder, and frown. No, that was Almond cookies, not what she wanted, flipping the page, she found Butterscotch cookies, not quite, but something to keep in mind for the future. Then there was Caramel cookies. Closer. Oh so much closer…

There! It was the recipe for the delicious and wonderful chocolate chip cookies, perfect, and wonderful. Just the right thing for a poor, starving, forgotten, neglected god of creation such as herself. Yet, she would forgive Marinette for not providing, if this worked. Pulling out the ingredients like she’d seen the Dupain-Chengs do before making anything, she smiled as she realized that there was enough to make a double batch.

It was wonderful! The perfect crime! She was guiding Marimech like a pro now, barely needing to think about the hair clumps to pull in order to get her chosen guardian to do the tasks of mixing and preparing the delightful treats.The oven was nearly pre-heated, and now all she had to do was spoon them onto the baking sheets.

Digging out the spoons to serve out the cookie dough, she prepared to scoop, when she found the hand didn’t obey her command, instead it was held up, and she could see blue eyes staring back at her, wide open blue eyes. “These are too small Tikki.”

“Hi Marinette,” the small, sweet, innocent, could do no wrong god offered with a timid wave at the spoon. “I-”

“You wanted cookies, didn’t you?” Marinette asked as she put the teaspoons away, and picked up the tablespoons to make the properly sized cookies. “We’ll need these…”

Tikki perked up as she found Marinette was going along with it. “Yes, that’s right, so everything is all set, and-”

She was cut off as a hand gripped her firmly around the body and held up to see Marinette giving her a very tight grin. “H-how long have you been awake?” she asked kindly, suddenly very aware that she was in trouble.

“Since the ladder, mostly, then the wall woke me the rest of the way,” the guardian and Miraculous Holder stated calmly as she placed Tikki on the counter, and put a glass measuring cup upside down over her. “You leave that, and you don’t get any cookies. You’re on time-out.”

No! Not that, how could she be in time-out! It wasn’t fair! Pressing her tiny, adorable paws against the glass prison, she watched as Marinette expertly used the spoons to scoop the dough, roll it into a ball, and place them on the trays. A dozen on each tray, just as the pre-heat dinged that the oven was ready.

“You two can come out as well,” Marinette stated as she put the mostly empty bowl on the counter near the sink. Tikki could see the small bits of chocolate chip filled dough clinging to the edge, just begging for her to come and clean them out before they were washed away. But she was in the god baby jail, unable to clean away the delicious dough begging for her to come and take them into her mouth.

Just as she was tempted to phase through the glass, despite Marinette’s warning, an orange tail dangled in front of her vision, blocking out her temptation. “Oh Guardian, that was brilliant playing along with her!”

“I almost broke our cover when you bumped into the second wall girl,” Alya added as she walked into view and leaned against the counter. “I was so tempted to record it all as payback for kicking on my hand.”

“And stepping on my tail!”

“Oh poor Trixx, I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to, are you alright?” Marinette asked as she pulled the fox kwami into a gentle hug, and gave him a small bunch of grapes. The fox wagged his tail to show that there was no harm done, but took the grapes from her anyway.

“I’m fine Guardian, but thank you for asking,” he offered politely as he settled in front of the glass prison to eat the grapes, giving Tikki an impish grin as he popped the first grape into his mouth.

“You know, if you could trust her to not abuse it, you could even get her to do that so you get to school on time,” Alya teased, scrapping a finger along the bowl, and popping the resultant mound of dough into her mouth. Oh, such a cruel and unjust torment for the tiny god. This was a good thing, she could help Marinette so much with this discovery, but is being punished for testing it out with something minor and mutually beneficial.

“There’s egg and raw flour in that, don’t have too much. You don’t have a kwami stomach,” Marinette chided as she slid the first tray of cookies into the oven, right in front of Tikki, giving her a perfect view of it baking before her eyes. Oh, what delightful torture is this?

The delicious aroma, the slow browning and crisping of the edges of those delectable treats. She knew better than to phase through the oven, again, but it was so tempting. She wanted to have them in her poor empty belly now.

The conversation of the humans faded into the background as she stared at the baking cookies that were spreading and flattening with the heat. Truly the waiting was the hardest part, how long had it been? Hours? Days? Years? Oh, dear cookies, wait for her, she will get out of this unjust prison and be with you again.

Ten minute later, a timer chimed, and Marinette pulled out the perfectly golden cookies, sliding them off onto the cooling racks. They were so close, so very close, and yet she could not reach them, she wasn’t supposed to phase through this glass cage of emotional bondage.

A second tray was added to the first, then a third, and all of the cookies were just there. Out of reach, but calling to her. Three cookies were removed, and eaten by the others, enjoyed and delighted about.

They were then plated up, piled in neat little stacks and some covered with plastic cling, while two plates remained uncovered, one with only six cookies on it, and another with a full dozen.

Suddenly, the cup was removed from over her, and Marinette was scooping her up into a hug, taking her away from the cookies. “I’m sorry Tikki, I know it was so hard for you. But I trust you learned your lesson?”

“Yes Marinette, I’m sorry.”

“Okay, so we’re going to let you have this plate of cookies,” Marinette explained while setting her on the one with six cookies on it. “And we’ll have the other one for ourselves.”

“What about those?” Tikki asked, pointing at the third plate with the vast majority of the cookies.

“Those are for next time we want cookies. But we should get to bed after this.”

Tikki couldn’t help but pout at the solid logic that was being presented, she should have realized that was the answer she was going to get. But it wasn’t fair to leave those poor cookies abandoned and uneaten.

“No,” Marinette stated as if she could read her thoughts. “That is not up for debate.”

Fine, but this wasn’t going to be the end of it, after all…

Tikki wants cookies.

#Story #My Writing #Miraculous Ladybug #Marinette Dupain-Cheng #Tikki #Alya Cesaire #Trixx #Midnight snacks #Piloting your friends for fun and profit #Cookies #Chocolate Chip Cookies #Humor Attempted

6 notes · View notes

jaynetodd · 17 days ago

Text

LISTEN UP GOTHAM THIS IS IMPORTANT

okay so like i was thinking about this while i was suposed to be on patrol but GRILED CHEEZE SANDWICHES ARE LITERALLY THE BEST THING EVER INVENTED and nobody talks about it enough???

like seriosly.

wait i got sidetracked bc i just saw a pigeon outside my window and it reminds me of that time Dick tried to rescue a pigeon with a broken wing and ended up with like 17 pigeons living in his apartment for a week and Damian was SO MAD that Dick wouldn't let him "train them for reconisance missions" whatever that means and then Bruce had to—

ANYWAY. GRILED CHEESE.

its literally just bread. and butter. and CHEESE. but somehow when you put it all togther and make it all melty and crispy its like???? the most perfect food in existence????

Alfred makes the BEST ones with that fancy cheese that i cant even prenounce and some herb thing in the butter but honestly even the ones i make at 3am when im bleeding from a knife wound and can barely see straight are still AMAZING.

you know what else is cool? motorcyles. i was riding mine yesterday and almost crashed into a hot dog stand bc i was thinking about griled cheese and now im hungry again.

Tim says im "hyper-fixating" but what does he know he literally survives on energy drinks and sadness

back to the POINT

if anyone tries to tell me that griled cheese isnt a perfectly acceptable dinner for a grown-up vigilante then i WILL fight you behind the Gotham 7-11 at midnight bring your own weapons

oh and @imbatman-imtired makes the SECOND best griled cheese after Alfred's dont tell Alfred i said that but its true

Crime Alley the cat likes the corners of my griled cheese and thats the only reason i share with her

thank you for coming to my TED talk

2 notes · View notes