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Fives wakes early in the morning. It hardly takes him two seconds to realize what’s woken him. He can’t breathe.
Well- okay. He can breathe, but it’s a little difficult. He would be worried about it, except that he knows what’s causing the issue.
There are two bodies nearly fully on top of him.
Echo is tucked up into Fives’ left side, a leg thrown over him and his silver-haired head nestled against his throat. He’s half on top of Fives, so close that they might be melding into one being. Tup, on the other hand, is less next to Fives and more legitimately on top of him. His position is nearly compromising to Echo’s, but they’re sleeping peacefully and making it work.
Echo is still lighter than he should be, but that’s not to say that his full sleep-weight on Fives isn’t a good amount. And Tup isn’t truthfully much smaller than most troopers, and it doesn’t make him any lighter.
Not to mention, with all three of their body heat, Fives feels like he’s melting.
But Tup and Echo are asleep, and far be it from Fives to bother him. Who needs to breathe, anyway?
Of course, Fives has definitely come to a conclusion.
This bed is not big enough for all three of them.
Despite this revelation, Fives lays still and tries to drift back to sleep. He keeps his arms curled around his partners and waits for when one of them will wake up. It shouldn’t be long. The three of them are relatively early risers, all things considered.
It takes a while. Long enough, even, for Jesse to wake up first.
The younger ARC stirs and shifts in the bed he shares with Kix. Slowly, Jesse sits up and shuffles out of bed, aiming for the ‘fresher.
“Psst!” Fives hisses at his friend. “Jesse!”
The ARC stops and turns. Sleep lingers in his eyes, but he scans the beds around him for the speaker anyway. He focuses on Fives.
Then the traitor damn near snorts at Fives’ predicament.
“Help me,” Fives hisses, over exaggerating with his mouth so Jesse will understand.
Jesse smirks and comes closer, leaning over them.
“Good morning, Fives,” the little shit greets with a smirk. “Sleep well?”
Fives glares. “No,” he says, which is a lie. He’d slept fine until he woke up and found he couldn’t breathe.
“Help me,” he says again.
Jesse seems to think about it for a second, putting on a contemplative expression. Then he smiles and shakes his head.
“Nah,” he says. “You look comfy. And even if you aren’t, they sure are. And I learned a while ago not to get between Tup and his cuddle buddy.”
Fives groans as quietly as he can manage.
“No, Jess, please-”
Jesse straightens and winks at him with a little two-fingered mock salute. “Sorry, Fives. Nature calls.”
“No!” Fives calls quietly. “No, no, no, no, no-”
Then Jesse’s gone and Fives is still in bed beneath his boys.
Tup shifts, somehow placing more of his weight on Fives’ ribs.
“Haar’chak...”
*
It’s nearly an hour later and the majority of the Torrent barracks have begun to stir. At least half the company is up, getting dressed and ready for the day. With the war over, there’s more leisure in the mornings. They can take longer to wake, they don’t have to rush to get into their blacks and armor and hurry off to breakfast, lest they end up late for their shifts.
It’s weird, and hard to get used to.
But there’s a certain part of watching Tup and Echo wake slowly that Fives loves.
Or, he would love it. If he could kriffing breathe.
When Tup wakes slowly, he tends to stretch a bit like a loth cat. He yawns and does this little squeak that Fives doesn’t dare mention, but it makes him smile anyway. After he stretches, he goes limp and boneless for a moment as his brain catches up to reality. Then he turns a smile on Fives, which is adorable both because of how soft the expression is and because of his hair which tends to be going every which way by morning.
Echo, however, tends to go from asleep to awake very smoothly. He doesn’t jerk awake as often anymore, but it’s a near thing. His body stays lax for the most part, but he blinks awake and takes just a second or two to get his bearings. Some mornings, he’ll lay with Fives for a little while, tucking his face up close to Fives’ until they’re both ready to get up.
It’s sweet. They’re adorable.
However, this tends to work better when their sleeping arrangements actually accommodate all of them.
The standard GAR-issue bunks are designed for a single trooper. The clones can make them work for two if needed. Three is pushing it to the point where at least two people are in danger of falling off. If you aren’t able to sleep almost perfectly still, it doesn’t work. Someone will inevitably end up on the floor.
More often than not, Echo and Tup wake up at the same time.
Fives lays still as his partners wake. Tup stretches. Echo blinks and breathes. Fives doesn’t.
A moment later and Echo shifts further up so his head rests with Fives’ on the pillow, which alleviates the pressure on his chest for the time being. Tup turns his morning smile up at Fives, pillowing his cheek against his boyfriend’s pec.
“Good morning,” they both mumble together. Tup sounds just a tad more chipper than Echo does, which is also normal.
“Morning,” Fives returns. “Can you both breathe?”
He gets a pair of frowns in his direction for the question, but he keeps his expression perfectly innocent.
“Yes?” Tup answers.
“Good, because I can’t,” Fives states. “Move, please.”
There’s a brief scramble as Tup shoves himself off of Fives. Echo sits up more slowly, his movements careful and deliberate.
Fives sits up as soon as he can. He heaves a couple of deep breaths, then he’s fine. As much of a relief as it is to breathe normally again, he’s mostly glad for the cooler temperature that comes with space between himself and his partners.
“Are you okay?” Echo asks. His brow is furrowed.
Fives nods and presses a kiss to the crease between his husband’s eyebrows.
“Yeah, baby doll. I’m fine.” He tugs Tup closer and presses another kiss to his boyfriend’s forehead, too.
“Then, why…?”
“We need a better sleeping arrangement, guys,” Fives tells them both. “I don’t have a problem being your pillow, but when you’re both on top of me, we start verging into uncomfortable territory.”
Tup’s cheeks go a little red.
“Sorry,” he mumbles, ducking his head.
Fives shushes him.
“Sugar, it’s not your fault,” he promises as he pulls Tup into his arms. “Not your fault the beds aren’t big enough.”
“We do need to figure something out,” Echo agrees.
“Yeah!” Kix butts in from his and Jesse’s shared bunk. He’s got half his armor on, hindered by Jesse latched on to his back. “That position is actually really not great for your back, Echo.”
Echo grumbles and ignores the medic by slumping into Fives’ shoulder.
“We’ll figure something out,” Fives promises them after no one says anything for a moment.
His partners nod and then it’s finally time for them to get up and go about their day.
*
They’re at midday meal when Tup realizes they already have the solution to their problem.
“Why don’t we just push the beds together?”
Fives and Echo stop eating and look up at him. He’s sitting in the middle of them at their table today, so there’s nowhere to hide when he suddenly has his partners’ eyes on him.
“I-I mean… we have both the bottom bunks, right? And no one uses the top bunk on Fives’ bed. We could just push them together…”
He tries not to shrink in on himself as he waits for one of them to speak. Maybe it was a dumb idea-
“How didn’t we think of that?” Fives asks, astounded.
“Tup, sweetie, you’re a genius,” Echo tells him with a smile.
Tup flushes.
Then both of his boyfriends lean closer and press kisses to both of his cheeks at the same time.
“Guys…” he whines and attempts to squirm away. Tup’s never been very shy about PDA before, but having them both on him like this - at lunch, no less - is very new.
It just encourages them.
“Aww, I think he’s embarrassed, Fives.”
“You know what that means, Echo?”
“What?”
“More kisses.”
Tup is forced to abandon his meal briefly to fend off the bombardment of kisses Fives and Echo shower him with. They press kisses all over his face - his cheeks, his nose, his forehead, his mouth, his neck.
When he gets up from the table to run away - laughing and now fully playing along in their game - they follow him. He almost doesn’t get to finish his food because of the Kiss War, but he’s lost his meals to worse things, he supposes.
*
That evening, they push Fives’ and Tup’s bunks together. It’s an odd sight, a bed big enough for two people. And really, they might be able to fit four people in the bed if they were really dedicated. But they just need space for the three of them, and this will work just fine.
They pile in together. Fives finds himself in the middle again, but it’s significantly more comfortable this time around. Tup’s head is on his chest, Echo’s on his shoulder. But this time they’re not half on top of him, so he can breathe just fine.
Fives smiles, holding his boys close to his sides. There are twin sighs from his partners and before long, Fives finds himself drifting to sleep, despite how early in the evening it still is.
“This is not regulation,” a voice says near the foot of the bed.
Fives jerks awake and feels Tup and Echo do the same.
“So?” Tup counters back at his batchmate.
“So, you could get in trouble-”
“Who’s gonna get us in trouble?” Fives asks. “Rex?”
Dogma flushes slightly.
“Dogma just get in your bed. You have the whole top bunk to yourself,” Tup tells him.
Dogma glares and grumbles, but pulls himself up into his bed anyway.
Fives listens to the tentative moving and shifting from above them, but Dogma settles quickly. They must have napped for a little while, because lights out comes quickly. The rest of their brothers had already been in their beds.
Tup snuggles closer and tucks his nose into Fives’ neck.
“This was a great idea,” Fives tells his boyfriend. He feels the younger man smile against his skin.
“Go to sleep, Fives.”
The extra room proves to be a wonderful thing when Fives sleeps all through the night and wakes up able to breathe by the time morning comes. Though, Tup’s hair is still splayed out everywhere and Echo has a leg hitched up nearly over both Fives’s and Tup’s hips. There’s a hand on Fives’ face and hair in his eyes.
He can’t help but smile, though. Maybe it’s not the most comfortable thing in the world. But he can breathe, and he has his boys right where he wants them.
Fives wouldn’t have it any other way.