John had drifted to the almost-muted sound of a movie he had no interest in, cautiously skirting the edges of unconsciousness until the sleeping pill had finally draped everything in a blanket thick enough to steal away thought. When he’d peeled his eyelids open an unknown number of minutes later, for surely it couldn’t have been any more than that if the aches in his body and the weight of his head were any indications, the sunlight streaming through the windows surprised him almost as much as the sudden thump on the end of the bed. He shifted his weight on to one elbow, tried to focus blurry into something recognizable, and murmured his annoyance at the speed of which the day had arrived. When a smudge in front of him nudged into John’s chin with a low growl, however, movement and compre
