Chapter Text
"Hey buddy."
Caboose clicked the video off. He turned it back on.
"Hey buddy-"
Click. Click.
"Hey buddy-"
Click. Click.
"Hey buddy. I've got some bad ne-"
Click. Click.
"Hey bud-"
"Caboose?"
He startled, sitting upright on his bunk and swiveling his sight over to the doorway. With the momentum of the movement his unlatched helmet swung with it, turning the already dim lighting into an overwhelming black.
"Hwa?! What the?? Aaaw I'm blind again!" He held the helmet on both sides, jostling it in frustration. "This always happens!!! Tucker never fixed this right!"
Tucker's voice appeared next to what Caboose assumed was initially Agent Washington, the two figures which had been illuminated by the back light of the doorway. His voice was quieter than usual. "Or maybe I fixed it just fine and it's backwards, dipshit."
When Caboose swiveled the helmet around he could catch a glimpse of Washington jabbing Tucker with his elbow. It was like seeing through a murky window with the opaque paused video over his visor screen.
He clicked out of it.
"Hallo." Caboose said, stuffily. Tucker and Wash turned their gazes to him, hesitant and calculating. They both looked tired. Of course, Agent Washington always looked exhausted, but the pair looked more withered than usual.
"Uh, yo." said Tucker. He looked at Wash, who looked at Tucker, who then did a little gesture thing toward Caboose with his head, which Wash sputtered and did as well.
Caboose thought it was pretty silly.
"Well, this is fun, but I think I am going to sleep." Caboose said, yawning as loudly as physically possible. Tucker and Wash looked at him again. "Wow, you don't even need to remind me today! I am going to sleep all by myself! Wow! Gosh. Which means you can leave thanks good night."
He laid back down in one heavy motion and stopped moving.
Agent Washington cleared his throat, foreboding his ‘I’m about to talk about emotions even though I’m uncomfortable talking about emotions’ voice that Caboose knew he did when Washington wanted to talk about things that Caboose didn’t necessarily always want to talk about.
“Caboose…” Washington started, in the exact tone prophesied not moments before.
Caboose began to snore loudly.
Tucker sighed in exasperation and groaned. “Caboose!”
Caboose turned over in his bed, only more determined. "Sleeeepysleepysleepysleepy."
Wash sighed, running a hand through his hair. In a quieter whisper, not meant for Michael’s ears but received by them nonetheless, the disheveled agent whispered to Tucker, "I don’t understand. Doesn't he usually WANT to talk about Chur-"
In one rapid motion, Caboose rolled back out of bed, leapt toward the door, and slammed it shut. "I SAID GOOD NIGHT THANK YOU YOU'RE WELCOME."
The two in the hallway stood, shocked, then looked at each other. Tucker shrugged and whispered, "I told you it wouldn't work."
Wash was about to say something, but the sound of a muffled, familiar "Hey Buddy" on the other side of the door stopped him.
Tucker stiffened and left before Wash could really think of anything to say.
Wash found himself talking to a door for the seventh time that week.
“Caboose,” he started, voice cracking and weathered from a week that had been nothing but exhausting, “You need to come out. Or at least let me in.”
There was silence this time. Complete silence. It was unsettling, to say the least.
“...Caboose?” Wash called out, a little louder, anxiety bubbling in him and frustrated that he was talking to a door. He attempted in vain to open it, quickly realizing it was locked. It wasn’t usually locked.
Wash’s voice took on an authoritative tone that he hoped wasn’t laced with panic. “Caboose, either answer me or open the door.”
Another long silence. Wash was holding down panic flaring in every centimeter of his body, ready to outright tear the door down. “Ca-”
“No,” a voice finally called out. Wash breathed a shaky sigh of relief.
“Caboose, what are you doing in there?”
“Nothing.” Caboose said. Wash was tempted to believe him. He had seen the man sit around and do absolutely nothing but mope before; the only difference was that the moping usually had enough volume to echo.
Wash took a deep, deep breath and thought about how to deal with the situation before him. Feelings work with Caboose. Feelings usually work with Caboose. But Caboose doesn’t want to talk about his feelings this time.
Wash closed his eyes as he tilted his head forward to rest it on the cool metal of the door. “You don’t have to talk, or do anything right now. I’m not going to come in and tell you how to…”
He stopped again, uncertain of himself.
He thought about the chaos of the past week; how Tucker was always angry and on the edge of a fit, how the reds were disturbingly reserved, how anxious Donut was, how Simmons couldn’t get Grif to act the same. He thought about how Sarge had looked at Wash three days prior and had told him with a heavy voice, “We’ll get through this, son,” then looked out with a calm, confident smirk and said, “That damn blue always comes back somehow.”
He thought about ghosts. He thought about how many times he’d wished he could forget the ghosts of his past, and he wondered if the reds and blues would ever be able to find peace and stop wishing for their ghosts to re-appear.
He wondered for the hundredth time that godforsaken week if Church had done it for more than a chance to save his friends.
He thought about the implantation.
He tried to stop thinking about it.
Wash exhaled a shaky sigh. “I’m...really tired, Caboose. Really, really tired. Can I just...come in and sit down?”
He admitted to himself that it was manipulative. But it was also as honest as he could possibly be in the moment. And if he wanted Caboose to open up and talk about this, maybe he had to take the lead.
He waited for a sign, only lifting his head from the door when he began to hear movement from the other side. Wash knew well enough from the sound that Caboose was haphazardly shoving something under his bed.
The door slid open jerkily- a characteristic of the old, metallic architecture of these bases, emphasized by the one opening it. Caboose stood before him with no attempt at eye contact, but Wash took in his appearance in a single moment. The last time Caboose was depressed, Wash hadn’t seen as much of him without his suit. The few times that Caboose had taken his suit off, it had never looked as bad as this.
His hair was disheveled and greasy, eyes red and swollen with shadows under them; his skin was paler than usual and splotchy from crying, as was his ragged old BLUE TEAM -1 sweatshirt that definitely hadn’t been changed out of in a day or two and mottled with stains. His slump, although not decreasing his impressive height by any great measure, was apparent enough to remind Wash of his own neck-ache. Most noticeable of all, Michael J. Caboose was wearing the most sour, begrudging expression that Wash had ever seen on him.
“Hi, Agent Washington.” Caboose said.
Wash had found himself holding his breath again. He let it out. “Hi, Caboose.”
No eye contact was made by the time he turned away, walking over to his bunk and sitting on the floor with his back against the frame, legs splayed out.
Wash hesitantly stepped into the room, closing the door behind him. He looked around and....didn’t see anything too terrible. Crayons and scribbled papers were strewn about and his bed was unkempt, but otherwise, Caboose had always been surprisingly tidy even in the worst of times. With everything but himself, that is.
“I don’t know why you need to stay in here, Agent Washington.” Caboose said, testily.
He looked back at Caboose, who was staring at the ceiling. “What?”
“You have other places to not be tired in.” Caboose said in the same tone, face twinged with a sour frustration.
Wash put away for the moment how...acerbic Caboose could be. He set aside how tired he was, how upset he was that no one seemed to want to work through this, and took another deep breath. He thought about how many times Caboose had gone through this. How many times can you lose the person most important to you? Maybe being a little bitter wasn’t the worst crime to commit during a time of mourning.
After a tense, painful pause, he stepped over to a clear spot a few feet away from Caboose and sat down, feeling older than he should as his joints ached upon bending, and cringing slightly at the metallic bed-frame digging into his spine.
He folded his arms and propped them on his knees, staring at the blue soldier over them. And suddenly, like time giving him whiplash, he felt much, much younger, remembering decades past when he had sat like this with his younger siblings as children, after fights and yelling and bloody noses being wiped into ragged sleeves.
But they were not children- not even Caboose, who loved things with a hard-won purity but grieved like a soldier. It wasn’t innocence that allowed Caboose to always stand back up and believe in a better day- it was strength of character. Wash couldn’t dream of faulting him for mourning now. Let him have his time.
Brutal honesty had won him entrance, so he tried again. “I just...wanted to be here, right now.”
Caboose didn’t seem to react, so Wash pushed forward, trying to find the words. “I’ve been running around the past couple days, trying to help everyone, but....I was worried about you. So it’s....nice to sit here and at least-”
At least see you alive, living, breathing, Wash thought to himself, falling into a stutter of thought. Because he was being selfish; helping everyone was at least a reminder that they were still alive. Someone had survived. They could keep surviving, and he would keep checking, making sure no one else left when his head was turned. Making sure he didn’t lose anyone else.
“To uh....to see….” This was too much for him, he realized in a moment of nauseous revelation. He curled in on himself a little and took another deep breath. It slowly dawned on him that he wasn’t doing that very well. There was a weight on his chest that pinched at his lungs.
Admitting to Caboose that just sitting here and seeing he was alive was farther than he could go, farther than he’d ever gone. He couldn’t say it. He wished he could for Caboose’s sake, but he couldn’t.
Caboose shifted at last, bringing his legs up to his chest in a mirror of the soldier next to him, fidgeting with his hands. Finally, his eyes glanced toward him.
“You...do not need to talk, also, if you do not want to.”
Wash laughed breathlessly. “Thanks, Caboose," he said with sincerity.
“You’re welcome," Caboose said, staring. Wash wasn’t looking anymore, but he could feel it. And it was fine. It was fine. He breathed for a while, sitting and thinking, awed once again that Caboose had managed to be a friend to him in the most important ways, which Wash floundered to do the same for him.