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Koala had retired to her room at around 10:30pm, where Sabo was already out for the count. He was sprawled across her bed in a hazardous fashion, snoring loudly. Despite a budding headache, she found amusement in the sight, his arms looped into a tangle above his head, one leg sticking out over the edge. She reached over him to close the window slightly, leaving a small sliver visibly open to Sabo through the half-shut blinds.
It was not a cold night, even less so now that she half-closed the window, but Koala found that a chill remained set in her body. After changing into her pyjamas, she located her hot water bottle underneath Sabo’s leg, half concealed by the duvet. She lightly braced a hand on his calf, rolling her eyes with a smirk as he stirred with a hint of complaint. After successfully pulling it out, she left for the kitchen to fill it up.
Hack sat at one of the table’s ends alongside a couple of other recruits. He smiled and nodded to Koala as she sleepily opened the door. His eyes fell to what she was holding, before he stood and wordlessly began to fill the kettle, reaching out for the hot water bottle. She handed it over gratefully.
“Found him,” Deadpan, she folded her arms with a light scowl, “He’s passed out on my bed.”
Hack chuckled, shaking his head. He was still in his clothes, but his brown coat had been shucked to the back of his chair. His acquaintances laughed along with him, under some sequence of disbelief.
“I thought that guy never slept! I always hear him walking about at night.”
“Yeah, like the time we saw him running around outside? It was, like, two in the morning!”
“He’s unbelievable.”
They continued to laugh. Koala turned away from them, facing Hack. The kettle clicked. Hack lifted it with ease, beginning to fill the bottle.
“It’s not so cold.” Hack murmured, glancing in her direction. The water came out in a thin, careful line. Threads of steam began to billow from the rim.
“I’m just a little chilly.” She shrugged with a smile. Hack grunted mildly in response with a minute raise of his brows. He screwed in the stopper, then handed it back to her, gently clapping on her shoulder.
“‘Night, Koala. See you in the morning.”
As if it prompted her, she yawned as she nodded back. “Yeah, goodnight.”
She pressed the bottle to her chest as she walked back down the hall, letting the heat seep into her limbs - it was hot in a way that slightly stung her skin, conjuring almost immediately relief. Koala wrapped both of her arms tighter around it with a content sigh, smoothing out the fluffy cover with her thumb. When she reached the room, she opened the door slowly, avoiding its creak. Though dulled, the headache still gripped slightly at her temples. At the click of the handle, Sabo turned his head to peek out at her. He glanced over his left shoulder, the scarred side he was practically blind in, so it was unclear how aware he was of who was there.
“Just me, go back to sleep.”
He grumbled back in response. She put together that it was something about a tree, but the rest was unintelligible; he often spoke when going to and coming out of sleep, Koala assumed he was between dreams and reality.
“It’s okay.” She replied, which seemed to satisfy him enough to roll over.
After settling herself into Sabo’s bed on the opposite wall, she found herself decently comfortable, not taking too long to fall asleep. Granted, it took her throwing a pair of gloves, a handful of loose change and what felt suspiciously like a fork out from underneath the covers, but it wasn’t long before she turned in.
-
It was with harsh thumps and mutterings that Sabo entered the kitchen the next morning. While watching the stove, Koala heard the door being thrust open as her headache made itself known once more. He abruptly appeared at her side, fully dressed - hat and all - and began to crane over the frying pan that was currently being burdened with a truly sickening amount of scrambled eggs. He was blocking her view.
“I wanted fried!!”
She furrowed her brow as the pain spiked at his shrilled voice in her face. She shoved him away by his shoulder with a scoff.
“Back up, Shit-head.”
He turned to face her and stared quietly in that way he sometimes did, eyes darting around her expression, then back to the pan, after taking two calculated-yet-petulant steps back. It was clear he had been up a few hours already, with a bit more energy than Koala was currently equipped to keep up with. She turned off the stove, reluctantly backing away from its heat.
“Grab some bowls. Hack will be here soon.”
“Why does he get my food?” He grumbled, gathering the bowls with a clatter. The sharp noises drilled harshly through her ears. Koala tensed her shoulders as he put them down.
“What?” He pressed.
“You’re so loud.”
She braced for an onslaught of retort from him, but only got so far as to hear him sigh as he continued to stare, before Hack entered the room.
“Morning.” Hack chuffed, taking the pan from Koala and beginning to plate up the eggs.
“Don’t take too much!” Sabo swerved around Koala to hover around Hack. He placed his gloved fists on the table tensely, leaning over to monitor his portion sizes. Koala rolled her eyes and spoke pointedly.
“Good Morning, Hack.”
“Yeah, yeah, I’ve been awake for ages,” Sabo
complained, “I’m starving!”
“You never handed in your report yesterday, Sabo.”
Hack pushed a disgustingly large serving of eggs in his direction. Sabo exhaled in anticipation, turning his back to him to sit at a table.
“Did you hear me, son?”
“I was busy, Koala did it.”
She pinched the bridge of her nose to ward off further pain.
“Well, I might have, if you told me you weren’t going to do it in the first place!”
He continued to ignore them, chewing noisily. The two looked between them.
“I actually heard you turned in early last night.”
Hack began, sharing a bemused expression with Koala as Sabo pointedly shovelled more food into his mouth to avoid answering. Koala placed her head in her hands and began to eat her own helping, relishing in its warmth.
“I’m still kinda cold.” She half-heartedly droned. They both just eyed her for a moment, Sabo’s fork relentlessly scraping at the bowl.
“Hope you’re not ill.” Hack replied quietly.
She shrugged, “I’m sure it’ll wear off before long. Maybe I’ll feel better if I get my own bed back. I dunno.”
“Schuddup.” Sabo grunted around the food in his mouth, hunching over the bowl defensively. Hack chuckled.
“Back to that, are we? Took us ages to get you out of mine when you were little.”
Sabo shoved the rest of his food, which was still quite a bit, into his mouth and stormed towards the door, chewing furiously as the other two laughed.
-
Koala knew how to fill out a report form. She had done many during her time in the Revolutionary Army, and even if it was a day overdue, it shouldn’t have been a difficult task. Yet, she sat at the desk for what must have been creeping into the third hour, wrapped up in two jumpers and a blanket from the cupboard, shivering with a clamping pain ruminating in her head. Her throat had begun to ache and the sentences she wrote seemed barely strung together, the act happening to her in slow motion. She spluttered feebly, curled over the corner of the page as she penned in the final words, before she collapsed against the back of the chair with an exasperated sigh. She pulled the blanket tighter around her as the cold slipped in through the opening at the front. She glanced waveringly in the direction of the window, though it was out of view from her angle.
Sabo kept their window open at any hour he was in the room. It was part of why they let them room together; he’d worked his way through the rest of the boys his age within months, unwilling to compromise on the compulsion. He still had a very limited recollection of his past, but it wasn’t hard to decipher that it was the source of this claustrophobic behaviour. It was clear that whatever life he had lived before, it left him with these antisocial complexes that made him admittedly quite hard to live with.
Koala didn’t mind much, though. She had grown accustom to catastrophic living conditions before, so in all honestly it was barely a slight adjustment for her. More-so, she was glad of the update, happy for someone to connect with in that sort of atypical way that she found most people didn’t have the time for.
Most children came to the Revolutionary Army under dire circumstances, which made connections a little difficult for most, especially for those with as much weight behind them as Sabo and Koala. It was more accurate to describe making friends with the others as finding the closest, compatible fits that was worth putting the effort into. Though a little codependent, it meant most shared a deep bond with at least one other their age. For most, it was their roommate. At first, Sabo remained rigid on this behaviour, never settling for the window being anything other than half-way open at all times, but nowadays he had an easier time with it, as long as the windows weren’t completely shut.
In lieu of this, Koala noticed that Sabo had been absent from the room all day. She figured Hack had him roped into some task to make up for yesterday - it would likely be fine if she closed the window to save the heat while she ran the report to Dragon’s office until he returned. He would simply open it again without a word like he usually does regardless. With a slow, uneasy rise supported by the table, she lifted the paper and made her way over
Only to find it already shut.
She sighed, cozying into the blanket around her shoulders for a final moment, before letting it fall onto her bed. She nearly gasped at the shock of the chill, before reconvening with her wills and setting off, report in shaking hand.
-
Walking towards Dragon’s office took twice as long as it usually did, and to Koala it felt as if it took triple that. Her legs followed her brain’s instructions sluggishly as her head swam in the pain, blurring the brick halls together. She dredged her way forward until finding herself in front of his door. She rose her wavering arm to knock.
“…Come in.”
She pushed the door open. Its creak was drawn out and brittle. Dragon was sitting at his desk, flipping through a paper folder in his lap, leaning back in his chair. His glance raised to her as the door clicked back to its frame. His eyebrows lifted in surprise as a small smile appeared on his face.
“Koala. Is everything alright?”
She nodded, then waited for the room to settle.
“Just handing in Sabo’s report. It was meant to be in yesterday, sorry for the delay.”
“Oh, he submitted that already.”
“No, he told us this morning he never did it.” She sighed with exasperation, placing the piece of paper on his desk, fighting against the tremble of her own hands. It was crumpled in the corner where she was pressing it between her thumb and finger. He watched her wordlessly, eyes lingering on the page.
Dragon was a great boss - kind and patient, but the man was painfully awkward. It made Koala a little nervous at times; it was difficult to read what he was thinking. When she raised her head to attempt to read his expression, she found him glancing between the desk and his folder. He grimaced quietly, before removing a sheet of paper from the folder and placing it beside Koala’s sheet, turning them both around to face her.
“Sabo was here this afternoon. See, he already filed in this report.”
She squinted down at the paper Dragon had presented to her - it was definitely Sabo’s handwriting. During his recovery, Sabo held staunch priorities for which motor skills he regained; writing simply never made it past a level barely above legible. It seemed like a point of defiant opposition to improving it further, which was definitely part of it, but Koala and Hack became privy to a quiet insecurity that he held at what he had lost. It proved to manifest into making it his choice to remain how he was, as if reclaiming control over things he realistically couldn’t. He loudly proclaimed other skills like fighting more important. To this day, he still avoided writing when he could. Which is why he avoided reports, and why Koala assumed he still never filled it out. She was used to writing out his reports often.
“Huh.” The confused sound fell out of her before her muddled brain could catch it.
“Although,” Dragon cut in, “I think I’d benefit from your, ah… version of events, too. To compare.” He added with an abrupt inhale.
“Of course.” She replied in mild amusement, as he slid both reports back towards him. Her eyes lagged on them for a second.
“Um… I could look through his report and rewrite it for you, if you like, sir.”
“No, no, I’ll do fine. Thank you.” His head bowed as a slight chuckle seeped into his words. He closed the folder and sat upright, placing it on the desk and closing his hands over it. He looked at her for a second.
“…You don’t look well, Koala.”
She tensed a little. “Uh, yeah… I think I’m coming down with something.” A nervous laugh resounded that must have been hers. “It’s not too much, though, I can still-“
“You should rest.” He interrupted quietly. “Anything that needs to be done today can be completed by… others.”
He tapped the folder awkwardly, looking to her with a stern friendliness that was unique to him. She swallowed thickly, nodding.
“Yes, maybe you’re right.”
His reply was a low hum; he held the folder at its sides and looked at it for a second too long, then rose to his feet. He turned his back to her, placing the folder on a shelf behind him. She found herself watching his actions for a minute.
“Is there anything else?”
“Oh! Sorry, no, sir.” She made her way back towards the door.
“My pleasure, Koala. Please take care.”
She closed the door behind her in slow motion, then began walking back. After wavering through the halls for what could have been 10 minutes or an hour, she managed to find her way back into her bed.
-
The creak of the door filled her ears, rising her to awareness. Koala couldn’t definitively say how long she had been between awake and asleep. She lowered the covers from her face to catch the large silhouette blocking the light from the hall. A surge of relief washed over her as familiar sensations of encompassing hugs and compassionate guidance took over.
“…Hack?” She had to push her voice to allow it over a croaky whisper.
The light from the hall was eliminated with a significantly quieter creak, and the blue light from the window faintly illuminated Hack’s face as he walked towards her. He placed a tray on her bedside table, then knelt down to eye-level at the side of the bed. She braced for the cold of his hand as he reached towards her, but his hand went behind her neck and pulled out a brown leather glove. She hadn’t even realised it was there. He huffed animatedly, eyes widening and rolling as he tossed it over his shoulder onto Sabo’s bed. Koala giggled coarsely, and the smile lines deepened behind his moustache. His hand fell to the side of her arm over the duvet.
“Not feeling too well, then.”
His rough voice was low and quiet, nearly sounding like it came out broken up into small pieces at this volume. She shook her head minutely.
“Hmm.” He grunted, studying her face while his thumb swiped slowly at her elbow.
“Sandwich there for you. If you feel like it. Water and medicine, even if you don’t.” His head dipped and he issued a playful warning through his brows.
She sat up slowly as Hack propped up the pillow behind her back. He placed the tray on her lap. His hands then folded over her knee as she took the medicine in a big gulp. The water seemed to smooth out her throat. She placed the cup down, then cleared her throat and turned back to his expectant eyes.
“Sabo filled out that report.”
He raised his eyebrows.
“First time for everything, I suppose.”
“He closed the window, too.”
His eyes drifted up to the window to confirm.
“Do you know where he is?”
“Something with Ivankov…” Hack muttered with a shrug. “Not sure where, but they’re around. But don’t worry about that now.”
With a final pat, he stood and made for the door again.
“I’ll come back later. I’ll tell Scrapper to get back when he can, too.”
“Thanks.” Koala smiled at the nickname, already slinking back under the covers. He always pretended to hate that nickname.
Hack nodded once more, before disappearing behind the door again. She carefully placed the tray back onto the table and pulled the covers back up under her nose. The dark quickly sent her back to sleep.
-
Koala was one of the few Sabo’s age who had never recoiled, even involuntarily, at the sight of his face. Sure, she noticed it; the gnarled scarring that bore most of his left side, his bad eye that didn’t quite track with the other, though it was still bandaged up when she met him. It was pretty hard to miss, but it never occurred to her to record it as an odd sight.
It was a different story to wake up to his face mere centimetres from her own, however.
She jolted, balling her hands into fists from impulse, and restraining from punching her roommate up the face from practice. He backed up a little, smirking. The remainder of her headache ebbed as he nasally chuckled.
“What are you doing??” Her voice came out in a hushed croak.
“Nothing! You scare so easy. Not my fault.”
She rolled her eyes.
His face was somewhat shadowed, backlit by the wide-open door that beamed a warm block of light into the otherwise dark room. He turned to the tray at her bedside, sandwich abandoned next to a half-empty glass.
“You gonna eat that?”
She kicked him in the shin from under the duvet, tossing it half off the side with the action. A chill spiked on the exposed parts of her body and she clenched her eyes shut, drawing her arms up around her torso. Disgruntled, she mumbled under her breath, feebly attempted to throw them back over herself with her feet, but her limbs felt tired and seized with lethargy and cold. She flopped them back down with an upset grunt, shivering as she folded her arms.
“Yeah, good job on that.” Sabo waited for her aborted attempt to finish before hap-hazardously throwing the duvet back over her legs.
“But seriously. Hack wants to know.”
She shook her head, pulling the covers back up under her nose. She glanced over to the window once more - still completely shut, even if the blinds remained open.
“If you get me another blanket, you can open the window.”
He glanced between her and the window, again in that silent, staring way. Pulling his lips into a tight, thin line, he began taking off his gloves.
“Door is fine.” He uttered, apparently very concentrated on the clasp at his wrist.
It took her a second to register that he was actually making that compromise willingly.
“Do you, uh… want that blanket though?”
“I’m warm enough under the covers.”
“Okay..” He flung the gloves in the vague direction of his bed - that counted at least three in there now - and started on his waistcoat.
“Very considerate of you.” She raised a brow teasingly.
“Yeah, I know.” He had his back to her now, but his terse tone painted the picture. He was too easy to wind up.
Koala didn’t think Sabo thought unkindly of people. His actions left a lot to be desired for most, especially when those actions were entirely dictated under his own agency, often against that of others. Most people in the Revolutionary Army had a rebellious streak by nature, but Sabo was downright defiant at times. She didn’t have all the answers, but Koala had to guess it was part him putting up a front, having an aversion to some of his true feelings, and part control, grasping at any part of his life he could reclaim for his own. It was also often around things he generally struggled with - writing, other fine-motor tasks, organisation, impulse control. It was important for him to eventually work through these issues, but Koala knew it never came from a place of genuine nastiness. Even if it was hard to see that at times when he hurt people’s feelings, it was equally important for someone to stand by him regardless of his point in progress.
“Sabo.” She untucked her chin from the covers.
“Hmm?”
“Look at me.”
He turned his head to her on his bad side.
“Properly, Shithead.”
He tutted and spun around. “What??”
“I didn’t know you did that report today. Thank you.”
He shrugged awkwardly looking back down to undo the last button. His speech stammered as he mumbled back. “It… was awful. I don’t get why we can’t… just tell Dragon what happened.”
“Yeah, whatever, I know you were being nice for me.”
He flung the waistcoat in the vague direction of his bed, then lurched forward, grabbing the sandwich on the tray.
“Hey!”
“You said you didn’t want it.” He spoke indignantly with his mouth full, catching a crumb that fell out and popped it back in.
“Oh my god.”
She turned to face the wall as quickly as her body allowed. As she resettled, she felt sleep overcoming her once more.
“Oh, Dragon pushed the meeting to Thursday.”
He muffled from across the room (it didn’t matter where his gloves were, but his clothes apparently had to be rehung up every night, even worn.)
“Mhm..” She replied sleepily.
“So..” He trailed off. She turned her head round to him.
“Your other work for that… wouldn’t have to be done on Tuesday anymore?” He was facing the wardrobe, but his arms were at his sides.
“Well, no, I guess not.”
“Wednesday, then?”
“Yes, Sabo.” She sighed, turning around to shield her smile. The celebratory clatter of clothing hangers reappeared.
“Nice.”