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It was common for Scorch to be up at night, whether he’d never properly gotten to sleep in the first place or had woken up out of it after only a few hours rest. Tonight was the latter and after wiggling out of Sev’s near-chokehold and turning him into Boss’ arms, he got up to get a drink, prospects hopeful about falling back to sleep.
He slid his fingers in-between where the door was ajar from the frame, fumbling for the hall light switch on the wall, before realizing there was a light already on. Odd that they’d leave the common room alight instead of the bathroom or kitchen, considering that’s where any of them would need to be in the middle of the night but hey; best not to waste electricity, even if they weren’t paying anything for it.
He didn’t bother getting a glass, hoping to capitalize on the still-persisting haze of a few hours sleep, and drank straight- mouth to the tap. It was late enough to justify turning off that lamp, no longer the lengthy, unbreaking darkness just after midnight, and he shuffled over to click-turn it off before realizing Fixer was laid out on the couch.
“Oh sorry- didn’t notice you weren’t in bed.” Something about that made his ears hot- said the same as when they had separate beds stacked in bunks, but knowing now that “bed” referred to the singular floor mat for all of them: low and taking up most of the length of the room. Knowing that they always ended up pushed against one another- that “bed” meant tangled up in sleep or sex or halves of both- weighed different.
“Yeah, couldn’t sleep. Thought it might help to come out here.” Fixer grimaced as he sat up to make room on the couch for Scorch, lack of sleep making the light strain worse but he didn’t want to be completely alone with his thoughts and focusing on anything was preferable, even if it hurt.
“Just… feel bad about Sev,” Fixer said before he could stop himself from mentioning it.
“Hey, we're all together now. And he won't be able to get a break from us from now on even if he tries-”
“No I mean what I did,” a pause long enough to settle like fluid in the lungs. “I almost left him.”
“No, hey- we shouldn't have gotten those orders. It's not on us that other people think we’re expendable.”
“Well we don't need me perpetuating it too.”
“Boss was trying to make sure the rest of us got out safe and they probably would’ve decommissioned us all if we’d found him and gone back. It’s not your fault someone else made you prioritize the mission first.” His voice tapered off, implication heavy that Fixer’s command chip had been the most restrictive, seeing how sick he’d become with it now gone: emotion flowing like blood and poison, experienced so heavily for the first time- like the body turning completely on itself.
And Sev’s lot was just as bad; if they’d all turned without him- for him to get killed back home for refusing orders, never having a chip in the first place... would it have been worse to leave him for dead, Sev knowing he was never as important as orders, or to be the ones to kill him, Sev at least knowing they’d loved him as much as they could before then?
Fixer’s body was reacting in genuine fear, as if someone was going to make him choose one or the other. Having his chip removed left the impression that something else had to take its place and there was an almost-desire to have it back; a false desire he felt immediately guilty for, knowing he’d been in that kind of serious trouble just a few days ago.
He didn’t want to die then- he didn’t want to die now- a panicked reassurance for the universe not to end him where he lay- but the ideation wouldn’t stop.
They’d cut his bangs to get the chip out, the pseudo-muscle swollen with blood and the new scar like the far reach of shattered glass. Fixer missed them sorely, almost embarrassed to care, but with his hair evenly short, without his armor, without the thoughts he believed to be his own- the cold sheen of anxious sweat felt like decanting fluid.
Scorch spoke up again, sliding a nervous hand towards Fixer’s thigh, unsure if being touched would help. Fixer brought it the rest of the way onto his leg and kept his own hand over it, the finger bones slotted still.
“Sides, Sev knows you care- he wouldn't be able to get away with talking to you the way he does if you didn't.”
Fixer’s cheeks went hot at that- remembering the feeling of Sev's fingers running over the back of his neck just earlier: trying to distract him, lingering like the cold- but Fixer shrugged him off, yearning entwined evenly with guilt.
“Do you know?” Fixer asked, calmer now.
“Do I know what?”
“That I care?”
“Fixer, you're practically glued to Boss and, again, Sev's always ribbing you about something-”
“No I mean do you know I care about you?”
“Ah hey, no need to get mushy…” But even though he moved to cover his mouth, his ears betrayed him: muscle-moving whenever he smiled. Fixer pried Scorch’s hand away easily, two long fingers hooked over the palm, easing his whole hand over the other's.
“If you know then I guess you don't need me to go into it.”
“Well, I didn't say that…”
It was rare that such an outstretched hug was so enthusiastically offered. A mewl escaped Scorch’s throat before he nearly tackled the other, Fixer holding him solidly and not letting up on the pressure until the other started to relax. It had only been a few days but he had missed this- touch unconnected to pain or grief. Scorch seemed to miss it too: sour about curling up next to two vode with one absent.
“You're so warm... You should sleep in the middle from now on so we can have some of it,” Scorch mumbled, cheek squished against the other’s chest, mouth lax and already drooling.
“As long as you and Sev wear socks, you always kick me.”
“But your back is so warm…”
“Hey, get a heated blanket then, don't put your bare feet on me-”
Scorch shifted his leg to tap his bare foot at where Fixer’s ankles were exposed between pant cuffs and socks. Fixer ruffled Scorch’s hair in return before they really settled in this time, tired of moving around.
"You’re quicker than I am and especially ingenious under pressure. I've always admired your energy and you take pain well; I'd prefer you didn't have to but when you do, you wear the scars well." At that, he thumbed over the lumps of scar tissue on the side of Scorch’s head that no longer grew hair, connected to the similarly spotty brow on that side, the pigmentation paling too. Not much command chip leftover after that accident to make a new scar.
Shy wasn’t quite the word for it as he didn’t mind having that skin seen, oft mentioning that the expanse needed the air as he twisted his helmet off, but laying the fingers over it like that, kissing it so slowly the only tell when the other moved away was when the contact came back...
“Keep talking, big guy; your voice puts me to sleep,” Scorch said and buried his nose in the other’s chest, trying to even out the heat flaring up over his skin.
“Under any other circumstance, I'd take that as an insult,” Fixer said in return and before Scorch could reply to defend himself, Fixer amended it.
“Kidding, 62.”
He traced a finger over another patchwork section but on the side where the hair filled in fine, likening the bumps to topography shapes, before going mostly quiet. He hummed the tail end of some song and felt Scorch nuzzle in towards his vocal chords, rumbling on the lower notes nearly out of range.