"Tucker?"
No way. No way. There is no fucking way Caboose is standing in his doorway at oh-my-god in the fucking morning, especially not after the mess of bruises and the one maybe-cracked rib and the general emotional distress Tucker's gone through today just trying to get his fucking squad to figure out how not to get themselves killed in a training exercise. Especially not after the way Kimball kicked his ass up and down the camp for having one of his squad land himself in the infirmary for fighting off-duty. There is absolutely no way in hell Caboose is standing there right now. Not happening, okay?
Caboose's whisper is somehow even louder than his regular voice. "Tucker are you asleep?"
"Yes," Tucker says, because it's worth a fucking shot.
"Okay," Caboose says. "I will wait until you're awake."
Tucker very nearly breathes a sigh of relief, then catches himself. Yeah. It's never that easy.
It takes him a second to realize Caboose is being literal and is, in fact, going to stand in that fucking doorway watching him sleep until morning. He groans, rolling onto his back and wincing as his bruised shoulder gets mashed into his bunk in the process. "God damn it, Caboose. I'm tired. I'm hurt. I'm hoping for some really fucking sweet dreams. Or, y'know. Really sweet dreams of fucking. What do you want?"
Caboose is actually out of armor for once, which is weird. Tucker has seen him curl up to sleep in that suit like it's the most comfortable thing in the world-like, Wash hardly ever took his armor off, but at least the guy complained about it on occasion. And right now Tucker's really fucking wishing he hadn't just thought about Wash, because that's making his gut hurt and his eyes sting and you'd think after two fucking months he'd be over that loser by now. No news is good news, Kimball says. The captives are probably still alive. Right. Probably.
Tucker throws an arm up over his face, covering his eyes with the crook of his elbow, and mutters, "Sorry, Caboose. What's up?"
Caboose sidles in; Tucker can hear him trying to move quietly, mostly because he keeps murmuring "quiet quiet quiet" under his breath. He stops beside the bed. "Hey Tucker. I was thinking."
Tucker practically swallows his tongue trying not to make the obvious joke. Caboose actually waits a bit, like he was expecting it as well, then continues. "I was thinking about how we're not at our old base anymore."
"Yeah, buddy. We're pretty far from home." And okay, that's kinda fucked up, thinking of Blood Gulch as home. But at least Blood Gulch came with the kind of zany insanity that ensured that if somebody got shot, they'd just pop up a while later as a really obnoxious ghost. They wouldn't get shot and get hurt and fucking sacrifice themselves and get captured by some psycho with a fucking hard-on for war.
"And I was thinking," Caboose says, "about what one of my sisters always told me."
Tucker perks up a little, in spite of himself. He tells himself it's not because he's interested in Caboose's stupid fucking life, no fucking way he cares about that, it's just that now there's the prospect of a hook-up at some later date if he ever meets this sister of Caboose's. Like, it's been a really long time, okay? Shut up.
"She told me that if you're ever lost and you can't find someone to help you, you should always stay in the same place. We went to a big marketplace and I got lost and I stood still and they found me again." Caboose pauses, and Tucker can hear him take a deep breath. "If we're moving around, how is Wash supposed to find us?"
Tucker doesn't remove his arm from over his face, just breathes shakily for a couple minutes and tries to ignore the way Caboose's breathing is dead-steady, like he's expecting a perfectly reasonable explanation that's gonna make everything okay again. Like he actually believes anything can possibly be okay again.
When Tucker finally pulls his arm away to yell at Caboose to just go away, he can't quite manage it, stares up instead at the new lines at the corners of Caboose's eyes, the hints of gray already showing at his temples. For a second, it's like looking into a really fucked-up mirror. Caboose is still a damn kid, he thinks. So's he, for that matter. Nobody as young as they are should look this fucking old.
"We'll find him," he says, at last. "We're gonna keep training, and we're gonna put the fear of Vanessa-motherfucking-Kimball into those stormtrooper knockoffs, and we're gonna find him. It's... it's okay because he's the one standing still and we're the ones looking."
"Oh," Caboose says. "I never thought about it that way." He brightens visibly. "Like how Santa can always find you even if you move to a different planet!"
Tucker sighs. "Yeah, Caboose. Just like Santa. Only with more heavy artillery." He rolls over in bed, sucking in a breath at the pain in his ribs, trying very hard to come up with an appropriately smutty dream to escape into that doesn't involve his current mental picture of Caboose's sister, which is essentially just Caboose in a bad wig. "I've got four hours until I need to get up, Caboose. Good night."
"Tucker," Caboose says, a little more softly. "I know you get mad at me for reasons that are probably very good reasons, and I know you have to do all sorts of things you don't want to do because Wash isn't here. But I wanted to say thank you."
Tucker blinks, half-rolls back to stare at Caboose. "Why?"
Caboose shrugs. "Because you haven't left yet. Because you've been standing still so I can always find you."
They're quiet a minute longer, and then Tucker says, "G'night, Caboose," and Caboose murmurs, "Don't let the bedbugs bite," and there's no good reason Tucker should fall asleep smiling, but for the first time in two months he does.