Sleeples
Notes:
This takes place directly after the Chorus trilogy/season 13.
Washington's soft blue eyes peeled defiantly open. The ex-freelancer hadn't had a good night's rest since the Epsilon A.I. was implanted in his head, and the nightmares had started. After living with the Red's and Blue's his nights had actually begun to ease. The dreams hadn't stopped and having to remember who he was every morning would never be pleasant, but for the first time in years he had actually managed a few almost peaceful hours of sleep every few nights.
Not anymore. Wash had hardly slept more than a few scattered, terror ridden hours in the weeks since his capture, or was it a rescue… by the Federal Army of Chorus. It wasn't as if Doyle had done anything to worsen the insomnia, but something had changed from the moment he ordered Freckles to Shake.
At first he had poured all of his extra waking hours into rescuing the members of the team's that had been separated in the rockslide. He had hated himself at first, when he thought he'd handed the four over to their captors. Guilt was even a plausible reason for the night terrors to return in full force, but if that was the cause then it would have eased after finding them well, unharmed, and on their own rescue mission.
Locus. He was brutal and he justified his killing by calling himself a soldier. Washington thought that he could have been the monster haunting him. Yet, he understood the older soldier to a point. The war had been terrible, he couldn't even imagine what years on the frontlines would have been like. Locus had just never been able to reacclimate into society, it was sad really. Perhaps made more so by the knowledge of how close Wash had come to a similar fate. In the end it didn't really matter, Locus would have to fight his own demons, and unfortunately he didn't take Washington's with him.
Now, it's been months since his time at the crash site with the rival sim troopers, and his sleep deprivation was affecting his mind. He could barely think anymore, his vision was hardly ever clear and the headaches were becoming crippling.
That had been the last time he had really slept, the pale skin man realized dimly, his bloodshot eyes refusing to seal him into the dream waiting for him. Three months ago, in the single room he'd shared with Caboose and Tucker. A somehow irritated smile pulled weakly at his lips. Tucker, who always managed to end up pressed against Washington's side. Even the times when he had caught the caramel skinned man moving into his bedspread, he would adamantly deny it.
The man's sluggish mind latched onto that thought, at first only pondering how the teal soldier could have thought he could win that argument from such an obviously illogical standpoint, but slowly Wash found his way to the idea that had been teasing the insomniac at the edge of the topic.
Tucker was the constant.
He had been there every night the ash-blonde could remember actually sleeping. Not just at the crash site, but in Valhalla, where the pair had shared a room, and thanks again to the darker man, a bed, more often than not.
Wash couldn't over analyze, or even just analyze the information in his current state. But he was thankfully in the stage of sleep deprivation, after the inability to function mentally which happened to be not caring that he couldn't function mentally.
So, though his decision was not well-thought out, or one he would ever consider under normal circumstances Wash quite frankly, didn't give a fuck as long as he got to sleep.
The pale man forced his exhausted body to shift out of the mess of sheets and pillows enveloping him. His armour lay discarded across the small room, an attempt at making himself more comfortable, and even as the scarred soldier stepped out of the secret confines of his room, for the first time, he made no attempt to pull on the bulky protection, walking out in no more than grey flannel pants and an old tee-shirt.
The Armonian house was new, a gift to the sim troopers and himself from Doyle, which as usual had been divided down the middle, the left side Blue and the right side Red. Despite not living in the building for more than a week the ex-freelancer had long since familiarized himself with the schematics. However, in his ragged state Wash was glad that his destination was no farther then the next hallway.
The very blue walls actually seemed to sooth the exhausted man, even as the cold wood flooring sent chills up his spine.
The door in front of him had become familiar itself over the past few days, but despite the warnings scrawled across it he pushed it open without hesitation. Wash breathed out a quiet shiver as his bare feet were welcomed with the warm carpet of the bedroom. He turned his darkly shadowed eyes on the door, hand still clutching the handle, and slowly forced himself to close it, most of the way. A small sliver of light slipped through the provided crack from the bathroom they always left lit for Caboose.
With the dim but welcome light to comfort him, the pale man stumbled further into the strange room, actually stumbled over his own feet and had to catch himself on a nearby piece of furniture, but the journey, dim and tiring as it was, became suddenly worth the wasted energy as he shifted into the small bed.
"Wha-? It can't be morning yet..." A sleepy grumble came from the man resting under a thick blanket, teal eyes fluttering closed every few moments in a haze of sleep that almost made his uninvited guest jealous.
"It's not… Just go back to sleep, Tucker" Washington hardly whispered as his heavy body settled into the bed, stealing his share of the blanket.
"Ahh… Wash…?" The smaller man questioned, his voice suddenly more awake as he stared back at the lightly freckled man now lying beside him.
"Hmmm…?" The blonde hummed in response, pale eyes already slipping closed as his consciousness was eased by the warmth of the shared bed.
"Umm... I'm not exactly decent." Tucker glanced down at the blanket covering both of their bodies before quickly lifting his gaze to watch the slack face of the other man in the pale light.
"Talk about it… Morning." The breathy fragments the older man's only response, and something akin to compassion dawned on the younger's face.
"You're not sleeping again, are you?" The dark haired man questioned quietly, his strange blue eyes searching over the worn face in front of him.
"Shhhh" Wash sighed deeply, an arm shifting around the other toned body and pulling it close for reasons that could only be guessed at. "Sleep..."
As the paler man's hushed word trailed off, his body sinking limply into the bed, Tucker didn't even bother to put up a pseudo fight. They could pretend to hate each other over breakfast, for now he just settled his body against the larger man's chest and let his eyes fall closed with a secret smile gracing his lips.