John often struggled with sleeping. He pretended he didn't, always spinning some sort of tale about how he had to stay awake to complete some obscure task—but you knew the truth. Of course you did. There were no problems to fix in the dead of night, not as often as he swore by, anyway; he just didn't want to admit that he struggled. He'd always been stubborn like that.

His thoughts ran a mile a minute, leaping from one problem to the next—from issues with the business, to issues with his family, to the issues in your marriage that he couldn't squash with a simple word or a wave of his hand.

Just the weekend before, he had made you inexplicably angry. He didn't even remember what he had said—some passing comment about the children, or perhaps your family—he just remembers how upset you had gotten, how you'd looked so horribly offended that any fight he held in that moment had left him.

God knows that he hadn't actually meant it. He never meant to make you upset. It just happened sometimes; Hell, like how Arthur gets a little trigger happy sometimes, or—well, Tommy never let his weaknesses show, but John was almost certain that there was something beneath that monotony of his. Surely.

A few long hours had passed since he first laid down with you and he still had yet to sleep. You were asleep almost instantly, wrapped around him like you were dragging him to the grave, and he envied that. Envied how you can sleep without flashes of the trenches in your mind, without being haunted.

John let out a heavy sigh as he turned over again, facing you this time, very nearly groaning when he saw that you were still sleeping soundly. While he knew he should let you rest after such a stressful day with the children—who'd all seemed to infect each other with a cold at the same damn time—a part of him couldn't help but want you awake so that you could soothe him.

It was pathetic to think; but God, was John pathetic for you.