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Quinlan entered the lobby of the main CG building to find himself in the middle of an argument. A fairly loud one, too.
Quinlan made his way toward the side of the lobby, where CMO Tender had entrenched himself. Tender was standing directly in front of the hallway entrance that led to the rest of the Guard complex, arms crossed and facing down an irate Fox.
“—because if you think I won’t notice, then you have severely underestimated both my all-powerful intelligence network and my capacity for spite,” Tender said flatly.
Before Fox could respond, Quinlan stepped forward. “Am I interrupting something?”
“Yes,” Fox snapped.
“No,” Tender said simultaneously.
Fox gave Tender a glare so severe, Quinlan was surprised it wasn’t boiling him alive. Tender ignored this entirely, likely with the ease of long practice, and turned to Quinlan.
“The Commander hasn’t slept for 74 hours now,” Tender informed him.
Fox scoffed. “And? I’ve done over 80 before.”
The look on Tender’s face was withering. “Yeah, you shouldn’t have done that then, and you shouldn’t be doing it now. Go the fuck to sleep or I will forcefully sedate you.”
“This is insubordina—“
“As CMO, I outrank everyone when it comes to medical matters, including and especially you, and I know you know this,” Tender said, unmoved. “I forgive you for this lapse, though, because impaired memory and recall is one of the symptoms of sleep deprivation. Thankfully, this is an easily solvable problem.”
Fox tried one more time, but even Quinlan could tell he was losing ground. “I have to go do—“
“Thorn is doing your paperwork, Thire already went through the rosters, and Stone rearranged your meetings for tomorrow, so you have no excuse,” Tender listed dispassionately. “Go the fuck to sleep. Or at least do something that is not work. You are banned from your office for the next sixteen hours.”
Fox opened his mouth to object, but Tender cut him off again.
“And I already asked Thire to slice into your datapads and lock them, so no, you can’t take those somewhere else either.”
That made Fox hesitate, long enough for Quinlan to interject.
“Perfect timing,” he added. “Because I was just about to whisk our delightful Commander here away for a luxurious spa retreat.”
“Absolutely the fuck not.” Fox’s unequivocal response to Quinlan did not in any way detract from whatever nonverbal face-off he and Tender had going.
“Okay, fine, I brought takeout and a holo,” Quinlan conceded. “But isn’t that more fun anyway?”
“Excellent, he’s your problem now,” Tender said, relieved. Quinlan wasn’t sure how long Tender had been thwarting Fox’s attempts to keep working, but knowing Fox, it couldn’t have been a small amount of time.
“Have you heard from Bly recently?” Quinlan asked as he took a step closer to Fox. Behind him, Tender made his escape. “Because I definitely have heard from Aayla recently, and this is one of those things where I feel like the story is markedly different depending on who is telling it,” Quinlan continued, talking more to make noise than to actually say anything, because Fox looked like he was processing things with a bit of a lag.
Quinlan tugged gently on Fox’s arm and started to draw him away from the lobby, and it was a sign of Fox’s exhaustion that he didn’t even attempt to protest the change in location.
He kept up an easy stream of conversation as he led Fox out of the lobby and towards the barracks. Fox didn’t respond, aside from a few “mmhmm”s.
As soon as they were out of sight of the main lobby (and the Guards inside), Fox deflated, as if the wave of exhaustion he’d been fighting off had hit him all at once. Fox wavered slightly, and Quinlan surreptitiously stepped closer to Fox so he could catch him if he lost his balance.
By the time they’d gotten through the door of the barracks building and into the common room, Quinlan had finished his recounting of the latest gossip from Aayla. Fox didn’t volunteer an opinion or even give much of an indication that he’d registered the end of the story.
Quinlan dropped the bag of takeout on a table in the common room and herded Fox a bit further into the bunkroom.
Fox was surveying his surroundings with the air of someone trying to do multivariable calculus in their head.
Quinlan sighed. “C’mere,” he said, gesturing for Fox to face him.
Fox turned towards him and blinked a few times. “Hm?”
Quinlan held out a hand. “C’mon, let’s get that armor off.”
Fox’s baleful glare would’ve had more effect if it weren’t for the bags under his eyes. “This is one of your more pitiful seduction attempts, and that bar was already very low,” he informed Quinlan.
“Surprisingly, this isn’t a seduction attempt,” Quinlan replied. “It certainly would be, if I thought you could stay awake for the entire experience. Now, give me your arm.”
Fox reluctantly held out his arm, and Quinlan started undoing clasps for the gloves and vambraces. Probably Fox could do this quicker, but Quinlan wasn’t optimistic about Fox’s hand-eye coordination at the moment.
Quinlan stacked the armor pieces as neatly as he could near the foot of the bed. Fox was still standing in the middle of the room, looking a bit lost. Quinlan nudged him and Fox started, like he’d been on his way to falling asleep standing up.
“Okay, time for bed,” Quinlan said as he made shooing motions, hoping to direct Fox to the bunk.
Fox drooped even more. “I can’t sleep,” he said, resigned. “That’s why I’ve been awake for over seventy hours - I get in the bed and try to fall asleep and end up staring at the ceiling for three hours straight and then if I’m going to be awake I might as well do some work,” Fox said. He looked thoroughly miserable.
A pang of - something, shot through Quinlan’s chest, and he paused for just a moment before speaking.
“Okay, well, I brought food and a holo, so maybe we could sit on the couch and watch that? You don’t have to try and sleep, but at least this way we can both avoid being murdered by Tender.”
Fox considered that for a beat longer than he normally would. “…What holo is it?” he asked warily.
“Another incredibly inaccurate historical fiction.”
There was no delay for this response. “Yeah, okay,” Fox said, and followed Quinlan out into the common room.
Quinlan had Fox start up the holo while he made up some plates of food for them. The common room was a rather dismal affair, seeing as none of the GAR budget was allotted for recreation or downtime, but the Guard had managed to scrounge up a scattering of mismatched couches and chairs and a decent projector for watching holofilms.
Quinlan brought the two plates of food over and sat next to Fox on the couch. The plate he handed to Fox had considerably less food than he would normally dish out for Fox, because Quinlan was suspicious that Fox was going to fall asleep halfway through the meal. Fox could have the rest of it when he woke up, in any case.
Fox seemed to regain a fraction of his energy as the holo started, which Quinlan had originally been hoping for when he decided to drop by HQ. Fox hated holos like this, but thoroughly enjoyed watching them anyway, not that Fox would ever admit that. The enjoyment, of course, was solely derived from Fox criticizing the inaccuracies in weaponry, historical context, battlefield tactics, basic mechanics and engineering, first aid, and anything else Fox could find to complain about. Quinlan didn’t mind the running commentary. Quite the opposite, in fact. He didn’t like these types of holos either, but watching Fox was always much more entertaining than anything happening on the holo.
Fox picked his way through the plate of food, interspersing his bites with scathing comments about the incompetence of the production team behind this media. This particular holo was about a siege of some fort, led by the long-lost sister of the leader of the defenders, or possibly mother. They had to defend the stronghold until the reinforcements arrived, or maybe until the villagers escaped, or maybe just until the main character could have her dramatic scene with nine minutes of dying words. Quinlan was truly not paying any attention to the content of the holo, but he didn’t really care about the plot anyway.
Fox started off strong with a diatribe about supply lines - apparently the defenders should have been dying from poor resource management well before they ever had to worry about a failure of the barricades - but started to lose steam after a few minutes. He did make it through his whole plate of food, though. Fox then set the empty plate on a side table and pressed back against Quinlan, all the while picking apart set design choices for artillery and various fortifications.
Quinlan couldn’t help but notice that he was taking on more and more of Fox’s weight as Fox’s last-minute energy burst dissipated. He leaned further into Quinlan, and over the next few scenes his incisive critiques were reduced to irritated grumbles.
A brief glance at the holo was long enough to witness a particularly egregious example of poor trigger discipline followed by a glaring instance of flagging a squadmate, which was usually the fastest way to get Fox especially heated about “writers and actors refusing to give two seconds of thought to the subjects their characters are supposedly experts in, and this is just pathetic, honestly, any of the shinies could do better than this,” but the Fox Commentary Special was notably silent.
Quinlan turned slightly to see that Fox had fallen asleep with his head on Quinlan’s shoulder. He grinned, relieved that Fox had fallen asleep and moderately amused at the speed and manner in which he’d done so.
Carefully, Quinlan scooped up his comm from where it’d been resting on a rickety side table, trying to avoid disturbing the weight on his other arm, and sent a message.
QV: hes asleep
Tender (Fox’s scary medic): oh thank fuck
Tender (Fox’s scary medic): he needs to stay that way for at least ten hours
QV: ill try my best
There was a pause, long enough that Quinlan had started to put the comm back down, before his comm flashed again.
Tender (Fox’s scary medic): we all appreciate the support, sir
Another pause, this one shorter.
Tender (Fox’s scary medic): Thorn and Stone made me send that, that was all them
Quinlan smiled, containing his laughter so his shoulders wouldn’t shake. Force forbid that anyone realize Tender was capable of having an emotion.
QV: of course, sergeant
QV: tell them thank you for me
Quinlan set his comm back down, more fond than he’d expected. If he couldn’t be on Coruscant as often as he wanted, then he was glad that Fox at least had his brothers with him.
He settled deeper into the couch, with Fox a solid line of warmth at his side.
He drifted a bit, ignoring the visuals of the holo and letting the audio blur into background noise. Truth be told, Quinlan was exhausted as well, though he’d slept a bit more than it seemed Fox had over the last week. He’d arrived on Coruscant five days later than anticipated, due to some complications that forced a much more urgent departure than he’d planned and a subsequent series of hyperspace jumps to cover his tracks. Not the worst ending to a mission he’d ever had, but certainly tiresome.
The holo eventually reached the ending and stopped projecting, leaving Quinlan with a small conundrum.
Fox was still asleep, which was ideal, but also still leaned against Quinlan, which was less ideal. Normally Quinlan wouldn’t ever want to disrupt Fox when he was actually sleeping, but the current position meant that Fox would definitely wake up with his neck hurting, and it wasn’t particularly comfortable for either of them long-term.
He could subtly try to rearrange them, but that would require shifting Fox, and Fox was one of the lightest sleepers that Quinlan had ever met. He was honestly surprised that Fox had stayed asleep through the comm messages and the end of the holo.
In Quinlan’s previous experience (from the incredibly rare occasions when Quinlan got the chance to stay through the night and wake up with Fox) Fox would twitch awake at the slightest of sounds or any movements at all in the room. There was absolutely no chance of him staying asleep through someone trying to move him. And if Fox was awake, he’d probably start insisting on trying to do work again. At the very least, he’d have trouble falling back asleep. Fox was an insomniac even on the best of days.
Thus the conundrum. Try to move Fox and almost certainly wake him, or leave him be for an uncomfortable attempt at sleeping while sitting up.
Also, Tender would probably kill Quinlan for waking Fox up, and Quinlan would probably let him, for disrupting Fox after less than an hour of sleep.
But if Fox was in a deeper sleep than usual after being awake for over three days…
Quinlan shifted back in the tiniest of increments, moving slower than he’d possibly ever moved in his life. The first attempt at moving Fox - extremely delicately and gently - did not, in fact, wake him.
He’d been doubtful of his chances, but this could actually work.
He considered using the Force to aid in this endeavor, but Fox disliked any type of Force power being used on him even when he was awake and knew it was coming, so that probably wouldn’t go over well.
Quinlan’s end goal was being stretched out on the couch in a more horizontal fashion, because even if it wasn’t as restful as a bed, Fox at least wouldn’t wake up cramped with tightened muscles. He was able to complete about half of the movement he wanted, with no signs of wakefulness from Fox, surprisingly.
Unfortunately, Quinlan’s attempt to move his leg out of Fox’s way instead resulted in accidentally bumping Fox’s side with his knee. It was a light touch, but absolutely enough to wake up Mr. “Hypervigilance Is A Competition And I’m Winning.”
Sure enough, Fox blinked awake. Fuck. Tender was going to be so disappointed with Quinlan.
However, instead of the usual flinch and zero-to-one-hundred transition between sleep and full awareness that typically characterized Fox’s return to the waking world, Fox just blinked sleepily a few more times. He gave Quinlan a bleary look and made a quiet questioning noise.
“Shh. I’m just laying down,” Quinlan whispered. “Go back to sleep.” He might as well capitalize on the unexpected opportunity, so he laid back fully, pulling Fox with him.
Defying all expectations, Fox actually went with it, settling into a position where he was half laying on the couch and half laying on Quinlan.
Fox mumbled something into Quinlan’s shoulder, some sounds that were probably intended to be words.
Quinlan put a hand on Fox’s back. “Go back to sleep,” he said again, as softly as he could.
To Quinlan’s complete and utter bafflement, Fox, to all appearances, actually went back to sleep. Quinlan wasn’t even sure if Fox had woken up fully in the first place.
This was the man with the constant need to be aware of everything, everywhere, at all times. Who identified escape routes when walking into new rooms and scanned for weapons when meeting new people. Quinlan had to deliberately use the Force if he wanted to sneak up on Fox, and even then it was still difficult. Fox was noticeably more relaxed when spending time in familiar locations with people he trusted, but Quinlan still got an impression in the Force of “attentive and alert” from Fox in those situations.
And yet, Fox hadn’t fully woken up even when Quinlan was actively moving him.
Quinlan wasn’t prone to using fanciful metaphors as descriptions, but with Fox deeply asleep and curled into his side, he didn’t know how to describe his emotional state as anything other than - his heart hurt, overfilled with something undefinable.
Quinlan let himself start to doze off as well, lulled to sleep by the overwhelming feeling of peace and the reassuring weight pressed against him.
His last thought before he drifted off was about whether this counted as “cuddling” and the reply he’d likely get by calling it that in front of Fox.
Fox woke up feeling very warm and significantly more comfortable than his average state of existence. He started to stretch, but his movement was hindered by -
With a start, he opened his eyes to confirm that he had indeed fallen asleep while draped over Quinlan, who in turn was sprawled across the couch in the common room, still asleep.
The familiar urge to immediately get up and start moving was there, but….Fox really was very warm. He quite frankly had not experienced this level of physical comfort since….ever.
He considered his options for a moment. He could go see if Tender would let him back into his office and catch up on what he’d missed while he was asleep, or….
Fox closed his eyes and went back to sleep.