Chapter Text
Beds in the Overwatch Barracks were numbered, the building split to accommodate overwatch on one side, and Blackwatch on the other. All sorts of people lived there, soldiers, pilots, medics, and of course the specialised agents.
The area for overwatch was far larger than the part for Blackwatch, since at the beginning Blackwatch was a significantly smaller unit, but as the years went on more and more beds had to be crammed into the space, making it ‘a little cosier’, or that’s what commander Morrison would say whenever Cassidy would complain.
Cole Cassidy was the proud owner of bed B35, it was toward the end of the line, only two beds away from the wall, and there was a window and fire exit between him and B36.
His ‘space’ was the gap between his bed and bed B34, where he had a small bedside table with a lamp and a few other miscellaneous belongings. He didn’t have a closet, or even a coat rack, so his spare clothes belonged in a trunk under his bed, the clothes he planned on wearing would just be draped on the end of the bed, though they were often kicked onto the floor in his sleep, and his hat sat on one of the bed posts.
“Whoever ends up with 36 is gonna be some lucky fucker,” he would say to the other agents, he’d kill for that extra bit of space that fire exit would give him, but he never once requested to be moved up a bed.
After all, 36 was occupied until a couple weeks ago.
He was a pilot, average looking guy, brown hair and eyes with a slit in his left eyebrow from a scar. Cassidy had spoken with him on many late nights, all pleasant things, he would tell Cassidy about his family back home, about his wife’s cooking, his infant daughter waiting by the phone for him…
Cassidy didn’t need to be told what had happened to 36; he knew he wasn’t back home with his family, he knew that the second the cleaners came to remove his belongings.
He knew his wife’s name, his daughters, even the family dogs names, where they lived, what their home town looked like, he knew so much about him but he never once asked for 36’s name.
He’d never mourned him either, or he didn’t think he did, after all they were friends but never that close, more out of necessity than anything else, but he did think about him sometimes. He’d sit up on the edge of his bed, the cold white light from the floodlights outside would peer through the blinds and illuminate the empty bed next to him, and he would sit quietly; just thinking.
His family lived in Santa Fe New Mexico, close to Cassidy’s own home town, so he felt like he had this weird connection to 36’s family, even though he’d never met them. He wondered how they took the news, if they were given his belongings, or maybe they were just thrown out. The institute had gotten in trouble over removing and destroying the belongings of soldiers who had passed before, and he’d seen personal items in the dumpsters behind the main building, items that used to be so important, items he’d seen people wear and hold; a college hoodie, an old stuffed animal, a photo of a woman and her cat… that’s where his stuff would end up eventually.
He didn’t ask to move beds almost as a sign of respect for 36, beds could be empty for months and often times would be left untouched in order to allow the people who were close to that person time to process and move on.
Which is why it made Cole so uneasy when they moved in a new agent after only two weeks.
He’d never seen the new 36 himself; only saw that the bed was unmade and the bedside table had a book and a bottle of water placed on top. The old 36 always made his bed.
“Given the chance, we would have moved him in as soon as the sheets were changed,” Moira told Cassidy during one of his regular check-ups. She complained about policies that stopped them from doing that and higher ups being over sensitive imbeciles, but he wasn’t really listening; the old 36 always made his bed.
So one morning, before his smoke, he decided to take a closer look. He wandered over, slowly opening the window as he surveyed the bedside table.
The book looked old, the text was Japanese, it lay open with the cover facing up in order to save his page. It was over half way finished. The water bottle was an old soda bottle with the label removed, the cap had a mascot on it and the bottle had small lines drawn in different coloured markers, tracking how much had been drank in what period of time. The table itself had small bits of loose tobacco on it, but there was no ashtray. It was some kind of weird unspoken rule that agents who smoked would keep an ashtray out to take with them when they would go on break, that way Morrison wouldn’t get up their asses about leaving cigarette butts around, plus it made it easy to figure out who to ask for a light. He was new, maybe he didn’t know about the ashtray rule but… curiosity got the better of him. He looked around the room; the last few agents had left.
So he slowly edged over, glancing over his shoulder every few seconds as he opened the drawer on the bedside table to see what was inside. A couple of bottle caps, some crumpled up paper, a throwing knife… but no ashtray.
Closing the drawer, he took a step back and folded his arms, looking around the room once more, but his gaze still dropped back to the untidy sheets.
The old 36 always made his bed.