Day3: Coffee Break, Already?

Day 3: Grumpy Morning Heads
Posing was a real pain in this one, but I think it turned out alright haha! I really like night time shading haha. It's a guilty pleasure xD

Headcanon:
Being secret agents, among other things, has its perks, but also its drawbacks. Being on call, 24/7 is one of them. Nicole obviously doesn't need to sleep much, and frankly, neither does Shard.  Shard has what he likes to call his 'recharge slab' located in the SFF garage where he usually spends the nights.  He doesn't need the sleep, as his power core is extremely efficient, but shutting down at night helps with his system updates and just overall helps keep all his inner workings in order.  Now, while he can remain in a conscious state during recharge, usually for the sake of defragging his system, he can go into a complete shut down mode. He absolutely hates this mode, as it's usually plagued with intense, lucid nightmares.  Nightmares that consist of reliving his memories as Metal Sonic(melting in the volcano is a particularly horrific one for him) and even extend to his greatest fear- loosing his sense of morality all over again and killing everyone he cares about. He has forms of awareness in this dream state as well, which makes it hit all the harder.  It's absolutely terrifying for him, but of course he wouldn't willingly share this information with anyone. Nicole encounters him multiple times wandering around the city at all hours of the night or sitting completely alone in the SFF base in the dark.  After a particularly heart breaking meltdown on his part and a long heart-to-heart conversation, she resolves to have him connect to her network at night, in the hopes that her presence in the system would help ease his mind.  Turns out, she's right.  Eventually, as their relationship grows, she even tries sleeping herself- though not for long as she's very, very concerned about the concept of something happening while she's not paying attention.  They have long conversations at night, usually half incoherent, but eventually they get into the habit of sharing a little virtual bed and snuggling all night lol  Shard insists that it keeps the nightmares away better than anything else. Nicole is, unfortunately for Shard, still an early bird by nature- 2:30am is late for her.  Shard tries to shut down until at least 5:00am, as he does like to wake up, survey the city, and watch the sunrise.  On those 2:30am mornings when duty calls though, virtual coffee is his savior xD

Next: Day4: Nothing I'd Rather Be Doing 
Previous: Day2: System Freeze 

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