Got Your Back

[churbooseanon]

Summary: Washington can’t sleep, but is that so surprising when he’s now a ‘guest’ of the Federal Army of Chorus, in the middle of a civil war? How is he supposed to consider letting his guard down, even if only for a few hours, when everything could go so horribly wrong. Maybe he could use some advice.

Look, @confessionforanothertime​, more!

 

Got Your Back

    Go to sleep, Washington. You do nobody any good like this.

    The voice, so like one that he used to use when he was a man on a mission of destruction, commanded him to the more than necessary action. God help him, Washington’s body agreed with the cold, professional voice of Recovery One. There was bone deep weariness, there was fatigue so strong it knocked you out before you could actually think about it. This, though, was worse. This was the sort of tired that left him so drained that there was no chance he was going to sleep. Some of it, he admitted, was anxiety. COncerns that refused to leave him be, so deep that they shook him beyond reason. But it made sense, right? Somewhere out there were the people who needed him most. Sure, Tucker had potential, but Caboose? Grif and Simmons? Trusting them with even someone as competent as Felix put him on edge.

    Sleep wasn’t coming, like it hadn’t come last night. It hadn’t mattered how secure Doyle assured them the room the three of them would share could be. Hadn’t mattered how comfortable Donut had said the cot was once he was in the the surplus army fatigues the Federal Army soldiers had given the men they saw as their pending salvation. Hadn’t mattered that Lopez promised to watch over the room, or so Donut had said and the robot hadn’t denied. Even Sarge snoring in contentment nearly seconds after laying down hadn’t tempted Wash.Instead he had spent all of last night sitting, reading a datapad Doyle had offered him discussing the war efforts, supply lines, troop dispositions, and intel on the New Republic that they had acquired.

    Note one of the data files spoke of Locus of course. Well, nothing but a single report by Locus’s hand explaining the battle that had made him a decorated UNSC soldier before the war had ended. Mostly it was a piece on how those tactics could be applied to the Fed cause, but there was something that bothered Wash about the glorification of a last man standing approach. But it had helped WAsh deal with the insomnia, as had making the notes of what he’d revise if he was in charge. Not that he’d ever share them. This wasn’t his fight. But by the light of the small lamp the decision had made sense. The words had just appeared. When the second datapad had arrived in the morning and Doyle had requested the first, Wash had deleted all of his notes and refused to consider the second in more than passing.

    Tonight, though, Donut had asked for the lights to be off, and Wash wasn’t going to ruin the sleep of someone who could get it. Seeing as Donut probably didn’t need him pacing the room as he arranged his thoughts and Sarge didn’t need him disturbing the top bunk the man had dibsed as Wash tossed and turned on the bottom on, Wash did the only thing he could imagine.

    “Heading out for a walk,” he had whispered to Lopez.

    “No me importa,” Lopez had returned blandly, and taking that as a confirmation if nothing else, Wash had donned his helmet and headed out.

    During a war, silence never really came. There was no peace, no rest, no real solitude. This place was no different from the MoI in that to be honest. Of course there were a number of small differences. The MoI had a comparably small chance of being found by the enemy. Chances were the New Republic knew where this base was, even if its placement behind the front lines made it relatively safe at the moment. But the chance was what kept people moving. Guards prowled at the edges of the base, strode walkways and watched from carefully chosen vantage points. Messengers ran with their burdens, and Wash could tell from a curse followed by the sputtering of an engine that even the mechanics were working late into the night. The only place that was relatively peaceful, that could give him a place to think without being bothered, was the roof of the command building. It was too short to offer a good vantage on anything, too centralized to give a clear line of sight for patrolling soldiers, and tended to be a relatively restricted area to Wash’s knowledge. Maybe it had to do with the place being the current center of the military’s planning and coordination efforts. Guards stood at the doors, but nowhere else. Which made it, Wash thought, the most likely place to pass his night without harassment.

    As expected the guards on the door let him by with nothing more than a little nod. NO one even commented when he moved to the roof and sat on the edge, taking his helmet off and setting it aside. Alone, he closed his eyes and took a deep breath of the night air. There was a cold tang to it from the snow that covered the area, but with a twist. Or maybe it was a lack that called to him. The only time other than this that he had been around snow had been at the crash site of the MoI after all. That place had also smelled of salt and metal. Not that this place lacked in metallic scents. No, he thought he was picking up on something mossier under the chill. Yet it was the underlying cold that he thought was getting to him, that was unsettling him and upsetting his stomach in the worst way. Each inhale tasted of blood and gunpowder from a fight he hadn’t wanted but had no choice but to win. The cost of it had been insane, and the result had ultimately been him living, him here, him now.

    Maybe the cold wasn’t for him. That said there was little that appealed to him about extreme heat either, for similar if less centered in himself nearly dying reasons. The desert and its heat had been death and destruction and a him that he didn’t want to remember, that he hated, that he’d rather had never happened.

    There were a lot of things these days that he didn’t want to remember he supposed.

    “Trouble sleeping?”

    Wash was glad for the balance he had on the edge, because if it had been any less certain he would have fallen when he jumped at the sound of Sarge’s voice behind him. He hadn’t heard the faintest hint of the older soldier’s approach. If he wanted to he could probably blame it on his lack of helmet. The thing was supposed to help him. But even without it he should have been able to hear the heavily armored Red approaching. The answer, though, came as Sarge moved forward, joining Wash in sitting on the edge and dangling his legs over the edge of the building. What he found was that Sarge hadn’t bothered to armor up to come outside.

    “Aren’t you concerned that you don’t have your armor on?” Wash had to ask, ignoring Sarge’s question completely. “Not to mention the cold.” There was no way the fatigues and sweatshirt were enough to drive away the chill Wash was feeling with just his helmet off.

    “Nah,” Sarge shrugged, and it was a wide, exaggerated gesture more suited to conveying the emotion in full armor than to civilian clothes. “See, the thing you have to realize about the cold is that it is Blue, and Blue is inferior to Red. Red is warm, and Red mentality is warm, and thus immune to the cold!”

    “That is the most bullshit thing I have ever heard. Ever,” Wash informed the other man bluntly.

    “Yeah,” Sarge chuckled in agreement. “But winters weren’t very kind where I lived before all this. Ya never lose the tolerance I think. Well, no, I guess you do. I never would have needed this pansy sweatshirt before.”

    The sheer disdain Sarge offered the too large garment actually drove a surprised chuckle from Wash’s lips. He even let himself shake his head in amusement. Only Sarge would consider a concession to temperature to be a weakness.

    “What about the fact that you could easily get shot?”

    Again Sarge shrugged, and Wash watched out of the corner of his eye he watched as the older man rolled up his sleeve to scratch at a bit of bandaging at his wrist. Strange that Wash hadn’t noticed the injury before, but he didn’t bother asking. Sarge could handle himself, that was something Wash had grown certain of back in that cell. Still, the indifference he was showing about the risk of not wearing his armor bothered Wash.

    “Way I see it after all this, ain’t much chance of that. Saw some of those files that General of theirs offered us. There aren’t any real chances of those rebel scum types getting to us, so no reason to armor up just to come check up on you.”

    “I don’t need you checking up on me,” Wash sighed. That didn’t mean he wasn’t thankful to some degree.

    It seemed like that was all Sarge wanted, as the older man moved to get up. And, not knowing why, Wash reached up to grab Sarge’s wrist. The older man didn’t respond, just stood there as if he was waiting for Wash to say something, not that Wash knew what he should say. The company was helping with the anxiety that demanded his attention. Letting Sarge go so soon seemed… bad.

    “How can you sleep at a time like this?” he ended up asking, and found a bemused smile as his response.

    “Well, it is night time and no one is trying to shoot me at the second, so it seemed as good a time as any.”

    “Two of your men are missing,” Wash pointed out.

    “Nah, cause we know where they are, which is with them rebels.”

    “One, we don’t know where their base is. Two, we don’t know if they’re okay. Three, don’t tell me you’re invested in this war, we don’t really know what is going on, just what this side says.”

    Again Sarge shrugged, and the repetition of the action made Wash want to shout at him. But, armored as he was, it would be only too easy to do serious damage to the Red, and for what? Because he was annoyed? Instead he just glared at the man, narrowed his eyes and tried as best he could to convey his annoyance and displeasure over the answer. There was something about it, though, that got Sarge moving. Not away, but back down next to Wash. Something that got the man to give him a few more minutes. Maybe that was all Wash had wanted to achieve with the touch. Maybe it was all he needed to achieve.

    “I suppose I could say that Fed sounds like Red, and New sounds like Blue, and so it’s obvious which side I should be on. Or, I could tell you that yeah they have SImmons, but they also have Grif and two Blues, so I’m winning here. But none of that is really what you want to hear, right? So what do you want me to say?”

    For that he had no answer. Expect the question he had asked before. This time he offered the question more sincerely. Asked it and was surprised to hear the rawness of his own voice. Which earned him pity in those brown eyes. Fuck, pity wasn’t what he wanted.

    “How can you sleep at a time like this?” he asked and tried to ignore that pity in Sarge’s eyes. Damn, what had he expected when he was so damn tired? Maybe he shouldn’t have tried to have a conversation when he was going through his second sleepless night.

    “Would think that you, after your project and everything, you’d learn it. How ya sleep. Just lay down and…”

    Wash shook his head. “Easier said than done, and we both know that, right?”

    “But you have to sleep,” Sarge said simply. “Sometimes, yeah, it ain’t simple. Not saying I’m worried about Simmons or, you know, Grif, but at times like this it ain’t simple. Back in the war, though, had to learn. We came in behind enemy lines, you know. When a chance to rest came up, when the squad found time and a place, didn’t matter if your best friend just died, you slept. You didn’t always know when another chance was going to show up. But you know that, Freelancer, don’t you?”

    “Some things are a lot easier said than done,” Wash repeated weakly.

    “And for you, lately, it’s sleeping, right?”

    Did he even have to confirm it for the other man? He looked away, and when a hand settled over his, he almost jumped. How had he not noticed he was still holding Sarge’s wrist? Well he was, and his hand sprung free with that realization. A moment of weakness he told himself. Just a need for contact he was normally better at controlling. A desire for company. No need to keep it up now.

    “There was something else that used to help,” Sarge offered, his voice coming out with the whisper of a secret.

    “I swear if you say counting dead Grifs or drugs, I’m going to find a way to destroy you.”

    The threat, one they both knew to be quite empty, managed to drive a chuckle from Sarge. At least there was that. Or, well, maybe the chuckle was Sarge’s way of confirming the Grif thing. God, Wash hoped he hadn’t given the old soldier an idea with that.

    “Nah,” Sarge answered. “Something we did with the ODSTs. Because sometimes, even when you wanted to calm down, you couldn’t. We had ways of dealing with it…”

    “Being?” Wash asked when the older man trailed off almost dramatically.

    “Well, I’m not sure it suits your Blue team sensibilities.”

    “Just what is that supposed to mean?”

    Another chuckle and Wash turned his attention to the older soldier. The look on his face was surprisingly concerned. As if whatever he was going to say really might upset Wash. Just what he’d always meant to do, make the blustering Red a bit off his game. Wash sighed and reached for his helmet. His cheeks were getting icy cold, and he just wanted to get warmer. Or maybe to hide how he felt about how awkward this whole situation was getting.

    “Well, it wasn’t the most orthodox and all that. Anyway, the best way to calm down to sleep was to know someone was there to watch your back. A buddy you trusted to wake you if shit got bad again. Someone you knew wouldn’t leave you behind.”

    “Yeah, well, seeing as pretty much everyone I would trust my back with has left me behind pretty fucking deliberately, kinda hard to use that solution,” Wash snapped, and he could hear his own voice going high. Just what he needed, getting defensive over his clear abandonment… no, those words were never even going to be a thought in his head.

    “That ain’t entirely true,” Sarge countered immediately. “If you really need it, I’m here. I mean, yeah, you are a dirty blue and all, but our men are out there, and that doctor lady isn’t going to clear any of us for the work we need to do to rescue our men if you aren’t ready to go. You aren’t ready, by the way, if you aren’t sleeping. Come on, Agent Washington, what’s the worst that could happen?”

    Oh, there were so many damn answers to that, a few involving him getting shot in the back. But once again Sarge was standing, this time offering his hand before Wash could snatch his wrist.

    “What do you say we try?” Sarge asked, his voice as soft and concerned as his expression. “I promise to just watch out for ya, and we ain’t ever got to mention it again if it doesn’t work out. I won’t even ask you to sleep back to back or anything.”

    Wash frowned up at him for a while, and still Sarge’s hand remained.

    “What have you got to lose?” Sarge said after a moment. “More sleep?”

    That… was a good point. At last Wash took the offered hand and let himself be pulled to his feet.

    “If we do sleep back to back that doesn’t mean I trust you enough to not have a pistol under my pillow. Any stupid Red versus Blue business and I may forget to leave the safety on.”

    “Wouldn’t have it any other way, Washington. Wouldn’t have it any other way.”