There's a knock at the door.
That in and of itself is pretty weird—Tucker's squad tends to just sort of wander in and whine at their convenience, Felix purposely opens the door as slowly as possible so it squeaks forever, and doors in general are just too fucking scared to stay closed when Kimball's on the warpath. So, yeah, polite knocking? Not exactly a common occurrence.
"Uh," he says, because what the fuck do people even say when somebody knocks? "Enter?"
The door opens a crack, and Simmons pokes his head in. "Hi," he says. "Am I, um. Interrupting anything?"
Tucker sighs, leans back in his chair and shoves his half-finished incident report across the desk, because his fucking squad doesn't even have the decency to fuck up the same way twice so he can at least use a form letter. "Yeah, Simmons. Just jerking off at my desk in the middle of the day. With all my armor on. You know. The usual."
Simmons actually flinches back a little. "I can come back later."
"Oh, just come in already."
Simmons looks around, then steps over the threshold and closes the door behind him. "Is Caboose around?"
Okay, Simmons acting weird is par for the course, but this is, like, hyper-Simmons. Tucker straightens up in his chair. "No, he's out with his guys on a run. So, y'know, we can probably expect to join the search party in an hour or so."
"Haha," Simmons says. When he's nervous, he doesn't laugh like a normal fucking person, he actually says it like two words, 'hah-hah'. "Yeah, that'll be fun. Okay." He leans against a desk, would-be casual, and stumbles, nearly knocking the monitors off the wall in the process.
Tucker sighs. "Simmons, what the fuck."
Simmons straightens, brushing invisible dirt off his armor. "Look, uh, the truth is, we drew straws. Well, ration bars. I lost."
"Grif cheated," Tucker says immediately, before he's even processed the more logical response, Drew straws to do what? "I guarantee it."
"Yeah, well, no shit. But I was kinda tired of arguing. Plus I couldn't figure out how he did it." Simmons looks back at the desk, shrugs, and moves around to go perch awkwardly on the edge of Caboose's bunk. "Hey man," he says, in a cadence that brings to mind long hours practicing in front of a mirror. "We need to talk."
Tucker props his feet up on the desk, pretending disinterest, but honestly, this has gotta be like at least a million times more entertaining than what he was gonna do with his morning anyway. "Dude, I kinda got that from the knocking-and-saying-hi thing. 'We need to talk.' Are we breaking up? Is that why you wanted to make sure Caboose wasn't here? He'd be crushed."
"It's about Wash," Simmons says.
Tucker stops smiling, plants his feet back on the ground.
"I mean," Simmons says, his voice speeding up a little, "I mean, your team is kind of getting pissed off at you. You're acting... well. Familiar. And, um, that's okay. I've caught myself imitating Sarge a few times because, like, that's what I'm used to in a leader. That kind of stuff happens, and then you just apologize for yelling and your squad finds it hilarious and they start a contest to see who can make you blush fastest." Simmons pauses, just sort of winds down, and hunches his shoulders, looking at his hands. "I guess I'm just saying maybe it shouldn't always be me and Grif and Caboose hanging out during our downtime and you hiding in your room doing extra paperwork. And you don't even enjoy doing paperwork!"
Tucker crosses his arms. "Dude, we were mortal enemies for fucking years. What the fuck makes you think I'd want to spend more time around you guys than I already do?"
"Look, I-" Simmons vents a loud sigh. "I still have nightmares, okay? It's like ever since we got out of Blood Gulch everything's a bit more real. Bad stuff happens and people don't pop up again as ghosts. So I see Wash take a bullet, I start thinking maybe he's not gonna get up again. And Sarge was—is—he always protected us. I think he saw us as his messed-up kids. And then he's down too and I just need someone to help me carry him and nobody's helping. People are dying and Felix is yelling and I just, I just fucking run. At least Donut's with him. I hope."
By the time he's done talking, Simmons is hunched over even further, both hands clasped at the back of his neck. Tucker is sitting very, very straight in his chair. Very, very still. "I'm sorry about your guys," he says. His voice is calm, even.
"Yeah," Simmons says. "And I know you were the last one out before the collapse—almost didn't make it out—and when they pulled your fucking body out of the tunnel and you had that dent in your helmet I thought I was gonna—" He catches himself. "Er. Not pass out. Something more manly. Maybe yell or something? Anyway. I know we only have Kimball's word that they're even still alive. And I guess I just wanted to say if you ever wanted to talk about stuff with someone who's not, er. Caboose. I'm here."
"Okay," Tucker says, and then, "Dude, I got work to do. So if you're done talking about your feelings—"
"Yeah," says Simmons, pushing to his feet. "Yeah, I- I should really just. Go. I'm sorry. I don't know."
He's at the doorway when Tucker finally pushes past the stupid fucking lump in his throat to say, "He did it on purpose."
To his credit, Simmons doesn't say a fucking word, just stands there waiting with his hand on the door. Tucker's not sure he could keep talking if that idiot actually turned around and looked him in the eye.
"Wash," he says. "I mean, Wash collapsed the tunnel on purpose. He was getting up—he looked hurt, but he was awake and moving around, y'know? And he could've just come with us, but instead he got Caboose's fucking dog to collapse the tunnel. He looked right fucking at me and did it. He was hurt and he trapped himself with that Locus fucker who's seriously messed up and already shot him once and, like. Fuck." Tucker shoves his desk and is a little surprised at the satisfying slamming sound it makes when it hits the wall. "Fuck me. It was over. The whole fucking Freelancer thing. It was fucking over. We were so fucking close, dude."
"Yeah," Simmons says, still staring at his hand on the door. "Well. I guess what I'm saying is, you're not in it alone. Like it or not, you've got us on your side."
"Lucky me."
"Hey, I'm not exactly thrilled about it either. But we're all that made it. We've gotta stick together. We'll find them."
Tucker tilts his head back, stares at the ceiling, and vents a long, long sigh. "Yeah," he says.
"Me and Grif will be over at the mess hall. Just, you know. In case you're wondering," Simmons says.
Tucker doesn't look over at him. Things are quiet for a while, and then the door opens and closes and he's alone again. He drags his attention back to the incident report, but it's basically done, it's basically been done for like the last hour. He's not officially on duty for another three. And he's so fucking predictable.
"Oh, fuck you," he murmurs, to the room, to Wash, to Simmons, to himself, and pushes away from his desk, because fuck it. He's hungry and the mess hall's the only fucking place to find a snack around here, okay? And if he happens to run into Grif and Simmons there, and if Caboose hasn't wandered off the face of the planet, well, fuck it.
When you're all that's left, sometimes you just gotta take comfort in the fact that you're not alone.