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It's one of those nights where sleep doesn't come, won't come. Until eventually it does, so late into the night it's really classified as morning. Exhaustion drags him under eventually but then the nightmares come. They come and the sleep is suddenly chased off into the, well not into the dark as the sky is at that point where it's just starting to lighten from inky black to the darkest shade of purple.
He knows sleep won't be coming again but the small bit he did get was enough to trick his body into thinking the exhaustion had gone. So he pulls on his sneakers and grabs the red hoodie from the foot of his bed where it had been thrown haphazardly hours earlier pulling it on and running a hand through his short dark hair. As he ghosts down the hall he stops once looking in to see an arm thrown up over a head of dark curls. Stopping a second time he freezes until he hears the sound of soft slow breaths. in, out, in, out. He smiles because somehow she makes even that sound feminine.
Instinctually he knows that not that far away another is performing similar actions, checking on a form that, after so many years just the two of them, would be recognizable among hundreds. Following that a glance in to see a pair of glasses and a wired gadget neatly on the nightstand beside a perfectly still form.
He slips out silently into the stillness of the morning and heads off in the direction of the woods where he finally begins to run. And when, a mile in, he catches sight of a crimson sleeve and shaggy blond hair out of the corner of his eye he merely nods.
Of course now, now he can breathe, because now he knows that in this moment his team, his people, are safe. Yellow and aquamarine, navy and green.
And of course the heart-stopping shade of crimson red at his side.
So he breathes deep and picks up his pace, the man beside him matching it with a chuckle.
Shane smiles and breathes.