Get through; the way.

"I think all this tedious work is making me stupid," Luke mumbles as he stops doing what he was busy with and goes to make more coffee.

Merce leans back in her chair and with a smirk replies "No, you are stupid because you are stupid." She laughs at herself and gets back to work. "Listening to you might be making me stupid." She says to herself not caring if Luke hears.

"Ha ha." Luke feints amusement. Stirring his coffee and absent-mindedly watching his hand. "Mmmm, so many wrinkles." He thinks to himself. Then stops stirring and chucks the spoon into the sink, the loud metal clang only serves to upset him further.

Walking back to his desk Merce gives him an annoyed look. He knows better than to make such an unceremonious noise. "Yeah yeah, I forgot there is no water in." Luke quickly says as he pauses to take a sip of coffee. Having successfully dismissed her obvious reprimand, he places his coffee down on the desk and proceeds to stare at the screen.

"What would you rather be doing then?" Merce asks Luke as she continues working at her desk. "Huh..." She says a bit louder waiting for a response.

Placing his coffee down and still staring at the screen he sighs and replies: "I don't know, not this. Probably just sleep." Luke closes all the windows on his computer and logs out so Merce can't fuck around with his stuff then gulps his coffee down. "Ciao."

"What?" Merce asks as she turns around to see Luke walking out of the office. "Where are you going!?" She calls, "To sleep!" Luke says loudly without turning around.

Usually Luke does quite well passing the minutes and the hours. There was a point where he thought he had chronic tiredness but that would be too convenient.

_{Source - Pixabay}

Luke knew he would not be in trouble because whilst staring at the screen for close to 20 minutes the day before all he was doing was buying time. He always thought that a weird saying, buying time. He was wasting time.

"You thought you were so clever Mr. Knocking Off." Merce hissed at Luke. "You still fell for it." Luke says grinning.

He had left exactly at closing time, essentially just leaving Merce with closing up the office which was a task they shared alternated most days.

"Aaaah!" Luke fakes a yawn and stretches as he stares at Merce then breaks into a smile turning to get back to his desk.

"Eight hours."

"What?" Merce asks.

"Eight hours till we can get the fuck out of here," Luke says as he watches the software open on his monitor. Once it opens he goes to make coffee.

To his mind having watched the software open wasted at least 2 minutes, making coffee he can waste another 3 at least. Obviously, after that, there is an opportunity to go take a dump and so on and so forth.

"Did you think about what you would rather do? " Merce shoulder bumps Luke as she places down her mug indicating he owes her coffee.

"Not this." Luke says as he tends to both coffees now.

Leaning against the kitchen sink "That is a good start. Do more of that." she says.

"Yeah... well... yeah." he muses and hands Merce her mug.

Taking her coffee from Luke, Merce heads back to her desk. a Few steps past Luke she turns back to him then takes a sip and smirks. "You can't do a whole lot of not this if all you do is sleep."