Archive of Our Own

Simmons stands on the roof of red base on a Tuesday morning, three hours after breakfast, and for a moment in time, he wishes something would change.

It’s been two months since they buried Sarge (62 days, 13 hours) and while the sun goes down now, while the temperature drops at night and it’s begun to rain, at least once or twice a week, Simmons wants more.

Simmons wants

He’s not sure, actually.

(Or he is sure, has never been more sure about anything in his entire life, but he’s not willing to admit it, not to himself, and certainly not out loud to anyone else.)

He watches the monthly dropship raise up in the middle of the canyon, feels some measure of irritation. It’d be easier if they just landed, for fuck’s sake, but they insist on letting the supplies fall halfway between both bases, like it makes a difference who gets there first.

Nobody cares anymore.

Maybe he should just be grateful they get a supply drop at all.

Technically speaking, they’re not really supposed to be here.

 Technically speaking, they’re not really supposed to be anywhere.

So he thinks, again, about

Well.

About a lot of things.

Change, mostly.

“Oh hey, sarge.”

He flinches at the voice, because it can’t be, it fucking can’t be, and against his better judgment, turns.

Simmons isn’t sure what he’s expecting, but it’s not the solitary soldier standing at the edge of the base’s roof entrance, dusty pink armor and a familiar hand lifted in greeting.

At first he can’t believe it.

Then, he doesn’t know if he wants to believe it.

“Donut?” His voice does not catch, but he can’t stop the way it lilts up in surprise. “What are you doing here?”

“Aww, c’mon, you didn’t think I’d let you guys slip out from under me that easy, did you?” Donut comes to stand beside him, and Simmons feels aware, suddenly, how much he has grown since they met, the square of his shoulders and the way he carries his pistol (it was always a pistol, for Donut).

He can’t bring himself to laugh, has a hard time grasping the fact that he’s here at all.

“I got your letter,” Donut says softly. He reaches out, aborts the motion. Stares out at the place where Sarge’s headstone catches the morning sun. “I’m sorry.”

Simmons isn’t sure if he’s sorry Sarge is dead or if he’s sorry he wasn’t there to help them. “Yeah,” he says instead of it’s okay, because it’s not, “me too.”

Donut hums, cranes his head around. Whatever he’s looking for, he doesn’t find it, makes an odd noise in the back of his throat. “So you really let him go.”

He doesn’t say who.

He doesn’t have to.

It hits him like a punch in the gut. His new arm has more control than the old one, but he hears the metal of his shotgun groan, all the same. “Yes,” he bites out. “It’s what he wanted.”

Donut does that thing that he’s always done, where he tips his head to one side. Curiosity, confusion. Innocence, projected on SPARTAN class armor. “But is it what you wanted?”

Simmons lets out a short bark of laughter, harsh, scratching against his throat. He can’t remember the last time he laughed. A week, maybe two. Maybe the last time he saw Grif.

Maybe when they said goodbye.

“What I want didn’t matter, Donut. It’s what he wanted. What he’s always wanted.”

“But that’s not what I said.” He reaches again, stops halfway, leaving Simmons to wonder. With Donut, he’s always left to wonder. “I asked what you wanted.”

Simmons doesn’t know what he wants.

He knows what he wanted, once.

A squad of his own (he had one, back on Chorus).

A higher rank (he had that, too, twice over now).

Sarge’s love, maybe (he doesn’t want to debate that one, he just wants to believe it’s true).

For Grif to

For Grif

It doesn’t matter.

It won’t make a difference.

“He asked me to come with him,” he says, instead of anything else. He looks at Donut, finds him already looking back. “When I told him. He asked me to leave with him.”

“Why didn’t you?”

“Because this is all I know.” He lifts his shotgun, gestures at all of it. All the nothing. The canyon walls. That ugly fucking tree. The dead grass and well-worn paths. Sarge’s grave. It’s all he knows.

It’s all he has left.

“He left you here alone?” There’s a broken note in there, genuine worry, and it catches him off-guard. Makes him uncomfortable.

Simmons shifts his feet, keeps both hands on his gun, though he knows he doesn’t need to. At this point it’s a familiar, comforting weight. Something to hide behind. “Well not alone-alone. Caboose and Tucker are here. We eat together, sometimes.”

Most times.

Every time, really.

Tucker spends his days staring into space or jogging around the edge of the canyon walls like he’s chasing (or running from) something, and if Caboose isn’t trailing after him, he’s standing on the cliff and yelling half-hearted insults down at Simmons. Most of those are good morning reminders that breakfast will be at the same time it always is. Simmons still isn’t really sure what to do with them. Not really sure it’s his responsibility to do anything at all.

Donut is quiet for a long moment, helmet tipped down towards the grave on the far side of the base.

Simmons wonders again (privately, of course) exactly what Donut is doing here. He could have sent a letter back. He could have called.

(He didn’t come for them, when the Meta was after them. He didn’t help, he wasn’t there–)

But instead, he’s here. Surely he’s got better shit to do than stand around with

“Okay.”

Simmons blinks. “What?”

Donut holsters his gun and turns, heading back to the base entrance.

Simmons watches him, that sure-footed gait, the line of his shoulders. “Donut? Where are you going?”

“To say goodbye to Sarge, duh. I didn’t come all this way for nothin’, you know.” He looks back over his shoulder at Simmons; if he didn’t know better, he could imagine a grin under that helmet. “Then, I’m making pancakes! You can invite the guys over if you want. I haven’t seen them since New Armonia. I miss them, and I bet they’d appreciate some real food, too.”

“Donut,” Simmons starts, but he doesn’t really know what else to say. That it’s past breakfast now? That Tucker and Caboose will be over for lunch soon, anyway, so there’s no reason for him to call them over? That he hasn’t touched the stove since he got here? That he’s fine on MREs, really, because they keep sending enough or three soldiers, even though he’s the only one left?

In the end he doesn’t say anything, just stands there for a too-long moment, watching the top of Donut’s armored head disappear into the base, then reappear as he trots out across the dirt towards the rectangle head marker.

Somewhere between here and their last base (a place Simmons was starting to call home, in earnest), he’s forgotten how to talk to Donut.

I’m okay, he thinks. Forms the words carefully in his head, can nearly taste them on his tongue.

He opens his mouth, inhales.

I’m okay.

It’s two words.

I’m okay.

Simmons is okay.

He’s not lonely.

He’s not even really alone.

I’m okay.

He straps the shotgun to his back and follows after Donut instead.

He isn’t lonely.

He said he wanted to stay.

(Some days he wishes he hadn’t.)

Sarge’s voice is barking orders to drop and give him infinity when he makes it down to stand beside Donut, who is staring hard at the shiny metal plate.

“It was quick,” Simmons says, like it’ll help.

Donut knows it was quick. Should know. It was one of the first things Simmons said in his letter, after “Sarge didn’t make it.”

“I’m glad,” Donut says, but his voice shakes, half an inch. “It must have been— awful. To see something like that.” He looks at Simmons, who feels, for the first time in a while (two months, six and a half hours), completely exposed. “I’m sorry, Simmons.”

“You could have been there,” comes out before he can stop it, bitterness and resentment that were supposed to remain hidden, were supposed to stay down where they fucking belonged.

Dammit.

Dammit.

Donut inhales sharply but does not sob, does not disagree. He looks down at the grave again.

One beat of silence, two.

An oppressive awareness that he’s the one who caused it.

“After— when Doc–”

Doc.

Shit, Doc.

Is it bad, Simmons wonders, that he hasn’t thought about Doc in months? Even before Sarge, even before the Meta.

Something like guilt bubbles forth.

“After Doc,” Donut says, slow and careful. This time, he does not try to hide the way his voice cracks. “I just— couldn’t, anymore.” His hands flex, look naked to Simmons, probably always will, without a gun to hold between them. His shoulders slump, and he looks older, maybe looks his age, the first time in years. “I’m sorry. You probably think I’m a coward.”

“It doesn’t really matter what I think,” Simmons says, which is neither kind, nor particularly helpful.

What is his fucking problem? Jesus Christ.

“You lost someone. I’ve seen worse reasons for leaving.”

“Right,” Donut croaks, voice clogged with unshed tears (Simmons is not comfortable that he knows this). “Like Grif.”

Simmons lets his jaw snap shut, teeth grinding together so hard he feels it behind his eyes. “It’s what he wanted,” he repeats.

“You keep saying that.”

“And maybe one of these times I’ll say it and you’ll grasp the fucking concept! He’s gone, Donut,” he says, and it feels real, then. Feels final, then. “He’s back on Earth where he belongs.”

“But you didn’t go after him,” Donut points out.

“I wanted to— I couldn’t leave,” he settles on. Gestures weakly across the canyon. “After everything, is it that unbelievable that I didn’t want to go?”

Donut regards him, silent and intense. Simmons would never admit to squirming beneath that gaze. He blames it on how alone he’s been, how awkward he is. “Don’t you think Wash and Carolina could take care of them?”

“I didn’t say that’s why I stayed,” he says defensively.

Donut gestures, drawls a little facetiously, “It was implied.”

Simmons sighs out his nose, looks skyward. The broken ring sits above red base, and it makes his stomach turn over, for reasons he cannot explain. “Wash is still in recovery. It didn’t seem right to—”

What.

To leave?

Go after Grif?

He thinks of that slip of paper still sitting on the bedside table of Grif’s old bunk, with a location and a phone number. He hasn’t touched it. Not sure he wants to. Not sure what he’s so afraid of.

(But he knows, deep down. He knows.)

“You know, it’s kind of funny,” Donut says instead. “When it came to helping the blues, you were always the one pulling up our rear, Simmons.”

“Donut,” he warns.

“But I guess it makes sense, wanting to stay behind.” He tips his chin a little, head cocking with something like infuriating humor. “You never did like change.”

It bothers him, he thinks, that Donut knows that. That Simmons could be so obvious for him, of all people, to remember that spinelessness.

He isn’t proud.

How could he be?

Simmons looks at the way the grass has begun to grow over the grave curb, Sarge’s shotgun slowly sinking into a soft pillow of green. “I guess I just thought I could do better, or at least— I told myself I would try.”

(He told Grif he would try.)

(He told Grif he was trying to change, and Grif left anyway. He’s not sure how he feels about that.)

(He’s not sure how he’s allowed to feel about it, because he’s the one who signed the papers. He’s the one who left the door open.)

“But that doesn’t mean—”

“Holy shit, is that Donut?”

Tucker comes jogging up over the last hill of Blood Gulch to save him the trouble of repeating himself for the fourth fucking time, and Simmons won’t admit to the sigh of relief when he sees Caboose trailing after, just like always.

Maybe it’s wrong, but he’s glad when Donut’s attention swivels, when he lets out a little crow of delight, something that sounds warm, sounds genuine, running up to meet the blues and flinging his arms out to wrap tight around Tucker’s shoulders as he fumbles to magnet the gun to his back.

They really shouldn’t be carrying these anymore.

Old habits die hard.

There was probably a time when Tucker would have pushed Donut away without hesitation (Simmons still isn’t sure he wouldn’t react the same way), but now he just lets it happen, rocks with the added weight, floundering for a moment before letting his hands come up to touch lightly at the armor along Donut’s back. “Hey, man,” he says, but he’s looking at Simmons.

Of course he’s looking at Simmons.

Simmons can just feel the judgemental fucking stare from here, and he doesn’t want to deal with it. He hasn’t even done anything to deserve it, for starters, and doesn’t know what to say, to defend himself. 

He could have given them a heads up, maybe, but he didn’t think, when he sent that letter –

Well he just didn’t think.

Didn’t think Donut would show up here, didn’t think he felt

It doesn’t matter.

Simmons didn’t think.

What else is new?

Donut is more careful with Caboose, wraps his arms around his middle, slow and gentle. Maybe he’s worried Caboose will break a few ribs. Probably wouldn’t be the first time.

That was mean.

Simmons didn’t mean that.

Or he did, but he shouldn’t have thought it, anyway, because again, it was pretty mean.

He can never be sure what Caboose is thinking, but there is a surprising amount of hesitation as his hands come up, a subtle mirror of Tucker. He pats Donut on the shoulders before guiding him away. “Admiral Cupcake,” he says with real, honest to god amusement. “I did not expect to see you here today, or any day, because you do not live here.”

“Yeah, admiral,” Tucker drawls, a bit of his usual humor tinting the edge of his words. “What’s a big cheese like you doing in a shithole canyon with a bunch of losers like us?” He puts his hand against the back of Caboose’s elbow, like some kind of–

Simmons isn’t actually sure.

Reassurance, maybe?

The blues are weird now.

Or they’ve always been weird, but the ones left are just

Off?

Everything is off, these days.

He hates it.

He can’t figure out how to fix it.

He watches the gears turn behind Donut’s visor, thinks, See? Do you understand why I can’t fucking leave?

If he was braver, Simmons might admit he

Well.

He cares about them, anyway.

“Simmons told me what happened,” is what Donut settles on, reaching out (always reaching) and tapping his knuckles gently against Caboose’s arm. “You didn’t think I’d leave y’all in the lurch, did you? Even I’ve got more decorum than that!”

“You’ve got more decorum than all of us combined,” Tucker says dryly. “That’s part of the problem here, dude. They really let you leave, just like that?”

Tucker has a point. A captain leaving Chorus was a big enough deal (he stomps down on the memory of Katie Jensen's face when he said goodbye for the last time), but a real admiral leaving…

(Simmons thinks it’s cool of him not to bring up that a promotion to admiral typically takes thirty plus years of service to achieve, but he doubts the others care enough to notice things like that, and he can’t mention it without bringing attention to the fact in the first fucking place, so he’s stuck in an endless loop of his own stupidity, which he resents them for, immediately. Go team.)

Donut turns that over in his head, then says, in a vague, perhaps too cheerful tone, “I had a lot of sick days saved up.”

Tucker snorts, but doesn’t push it. Simmons watches his visor drift towards the gravestone for a moment too long, that quiet thoughtfulness that doesn’t suit him, that’s hung around him like a black cloud since he woke up, after the battle.

Caboose doesn’t complain when Tucker steps around his back to stand on his left side instead, as far as he can get from Sarge.

Simmons is polite enough not to point that out, either. “Slip space feels like a pretty shitty way to spend those sick hours, Donut.”

Blood Gulch is hardly a stone’s throw from Earth, but Chorus is even farther. It had to have taken him days to get here, if not longer.

He hums but doesn’t deny it, tips his head at Tucker and Caboose instead. “Anyone up for pancakes?” Simmons tries not to feel a little pang of hurt when he turns and marches away, back towards red base, without looking at him again.

He hasn’t done anything to earn that hurt, not really, but still, it burns, low in his gut.

Shit, he didn’t even say sorry about Doc.

That’s not even low level shitty, that’s like, third degree shitty.

If Grif were here, he’d

But he’s not here, is he?

Grif isn’t here anymore.

Simmons is alone.

But not alone-alone.

Caboose starts after Donut immediately, but Tucker hangs back, sits there in silence for one second, two.

Simmons caves first.

He always does.

“What?”

“Are you okay?” He’s not expecting it, but Tucker nods towards red base, where Caboose, having realized they did not follow, is standing at the entrance, looking back at them and waiting.

(Waiting for Tucker.)

(The blues are so fucking weird.)

“With what?” Simmons doesn’t wince at the way his voice pitches up at the end, defensive, uncool.

“With this.” Tucker gestures vaguely before crossing his arms, not defensive, just. Uncomfortable with empty hands.

Just like him.

“Him. Donut, being here. We can offer him a bunk at blue base, if it’d be easier for you. I don’t mind, and it’s not like we’re hurting for space right now. It’d be nice for Caboose to have someone else to annoy the shit out for once, you know?”

Simmons wonders what it says about him that Tucker of all people noticed his discomfort.

(There’s no one else left to notice.)

He thinks about the way Donut’s voice caught, thick with tears, shaky around the edges. The tremor when he said Doc’s name.

The way he reached for Simmons, once, then again.

“Nah,” he says slowly. “I mean– I’m okay. With this.” He gestures, still holding his shotgun. “With him. It wasn’t his fault, you know?”

Tucker knows.

Of course he knows.

Simmons and his big fucking mouth.

But Tucker just says, “I know,” in a soft voice, something he usually reserves for Caboose’s bad days, and Simmons feels more like shit than ever.

These fucking blues.

“But if you change your mind —” He makes a movement with his hand, points at Simmons, then himself.

He gets the picture. Rolls his eyes, though Tucker can’t see him, though there’s a little bit of warmth that feels an awful lot like affection, blooming in his chest. “Yeah, yeah. I know.”

“I don’t think any of us know anything anymore, man,” Tucker sighs, dropping his arms. “C’mon, before Caboose gets anxious enough to come back over here and carry us both to the fuckin’ kitchen.”

Simmons wouldn’t really put it past him, especially not with the way Caboose is already shifting his feet by the entrance, left, then right, then left again.

“We’re literally right here, idiot,” Tucker tells him, but Simmons doesn’t fight his smile when he reaches out, hooking his arm around Caboose’s elbow and dragging him into the base. “Stop being so anxious, you’re embarrassing me in front of Simmons. That’s just shameful.”

“I wasn’t,” Caboose sniffs, more defensive than hurt. He doesn’t shrug Tucker off.

Simmons tries not to miss Grif.

Donut’s found and donned his old “kiss the cook!” apron by the time they filter into the kitchen. His helmet sits beside him on the counter, and Simmons isn’t surprised to see his hair is longer than the last time they were all together in New Armonia. It is a little untidier than usual, worse than the typical helmet hair. That. Surprises him. “Hey, guys! Glad you decided to join me. I thought this was going to turn into a brunch for one, after all! Don’t you worry about lifting a finger, I’ve got everything under control. You can always trust that the job will get done when Admiral Donut is on the case!” He gives them that same lopsided grin he’s always had, crooked teeth, pearly white, as he shoos them towards the table in a grand sweeping motion. “Sit down, sit down.”

There are various bowls and boxes on the counter that Simmons does not recognize. He decides not to ask; none of them ever questioned the endless supplies required for Donut’s daily wine and cheese hour, and he’s sure as shit not about to start now.

Tucker glances at his apron and snorts softly, but he doesn’t protest, taking his usual seal at the table (Donut’s old seat. Simmons’ hadn’t bothered mentioning it before, because it didn’t matter, but he wonders now, if it’ll make a difference). He hesitates a moment, glancing at the back of Donut’s head for a full thirty seconds (Simmons isn’t counting the readout on his visor, he swears he’s not) before he takes off his own helmet, setting it gingerly to the side. He pats his braids, but they’re neat as they’ve ever been. Simmons chooses not to be insulted that Tucker never seems to care about his hair when it’s just the three of them, because that would be ridiculous.

He notices, though.

Not that it means anything.

He follows suit anyway, doesn’t grimace when Donut beams at him, because it would be stupid, feeling self-conscious around him of all people. He’s being super mature and normal about his helmet hair, really he is.

Caboose takes a second. Caboose always takes a second. He makes it to the table, stopping there beside his usual spot (it’s Sarge’s spot, but out of all the blues, Simmons thinks Caboose is probably the person he minds the least, sitting at the head of their table— he couldn’t bear to take it himself). He raises his hands up, like he’s going to release his helmet clasp, then drops them again, visor turning towards Donut, who’d begun humming to himself absently.

Simmons wonders if his helmet just has some kind of fucked up processing delay, too damaged to function properly anymore. At least it would explain—

He decides that’s too mean (again), and glances at Tucker instead, raising an eyebrow.

Tucker shoots him an irritated look, which actually makes him feel better, some degree of normalcy between them, before caving, pinching the bridge of his nose and sighing. “Caboose, we talked about this. You can’t eat with your helmet on.”

Caboose huffs, offended. “Uh, yeah, I know that, Tucker. Wash already told me.”

Tucker’s mouth ticks down, but they don’t fight about it (Simmons is grateful, because it’s a lot easier to avoid their Wash Fights if they’re not happening in his own base). “So take it off and sit down, then. You’re just standing there like an asshole.”

“I am not,” Caboose mutters, but he does take off his helmet, shakes his hair til it settles. It’s getting long, now, falls too far into his eyes.

Simmons wonders if he should offer to cut it.

Decides that’s probably still too weird.

“You are.” Tucker leans over and grabs his hand, dragging him down into the chair. “Stop being weird.”

“You’re weird,” he shoots back, but he goes, all the same, sets his helmet carefully next to Tucker’s with a pointed look.

Tucker sticks his tongue out. Caboose copies him.

Simmons pushes his tongue into his cheek to stop himself from laughing.

Some days, things are

Well they’re not normal.

But they feel okay.

At least for a few minutes at a time.

“Now, now,” Donut tempers, drawing their attention away from their argument. “There’s no need to fuss when I’m here to serve. How many do you want? One stack? Two? You know I won’t stop til I fill you boys up!”

Tucker groans, dragging a hand down his face and rolling his eyes. “Jesus Christ, I did not miss that. How the hell have you kept it up after all these years?”

Simmons and Caboose both pause to look at him, but he doesn’t say it, and none of them quite make it to a laugh.

Simmons expects Donut to play dumb, maybe dismiss the idea entirely. Instead, he turns and looks over his shoulder, smile crooking up too high on one side. “Practice makes perfect, Tucker. You should know that better than anyone.”

Tucker doesn’t say it this time, either, though Simmons half expects him to. It’s unlike him to let two go in a row. Instead, he lets out a breathy little sound that could nearly be a laugh, doesn’t tell Donut to fuck off, mouth slanted in a grin. “Not funny,” he warns.

“I never said I was being funny,” Donut says, but his smile, as he turns away, is a little too shitty to be believable.

Tucker just scoffs and leans back in his chair, shutting his eyes. The bags beneath them would be visible from space, but he looks happier, Simmons thinks. Or wants to think. “How the hell did the reds put up with you all these years.”

“They didn’t.” Donut wiggles a jug of liquid in their direction. “Orange juice? I found it in the pantry.”

“The canned stuff?”

He shrugs. “Figured it was better than those old Yoohoos in the back of the fridge. I think they stopped making those in ‘47.”

“Sarge drinks them on Sundays,” Simmons says, before he can really catch himself.

It’s been two months.

(It’s only been two months.)

“He did,” he corrects, though it’s too late now. He stares down at the old wood of the table, the familiar cracks and water stains. “I told him they were expired, but he told me—”

They’re staring at him.

He doesn’t have to look up to know, but he does, sees the way Tucker has tensed up, how his jaw tightens, mouth pulling down.

Caboose presses his lips into a thin line, that thing he does when he wants to say something, but actually knows better.

Donut looks

A little heartbroken, maybe. He’s always been like that, all wide open expressions and nothing to hide. His brows tip together in the center, his eyes go glassy.

Simmons looks away.

“I guess it doesn’t matter.” He clears his throat, doesn’t apologize, because it’s not his fault, not really, and because saying sorry won’t fix the problem.

(Simmons has never been good at saying sorry and meaning it, not really.)

Tucker sighs out his nose, then slowly, careful and deliberate, reaches out and taps the back of his armored hand against Simmons’ left before pulling away. He can’t feel it, obviously, but it’s the thought that counts. Tucker looks directly at him, eyes warm and brown as they’ve ever been. Tight at the corners, but genuine. “You don’t have to be sorry about missing him.”

He feels his ears burning, hopes it doesn’t show. “I didn’t say I was sorry.”

Tucker’s mouth tips up on the left. “You didn’t have to. You’re kind of an emo bitch, Simmons.”

“Oh fuck off, blue. Like you don’t spend half the day moping around the canyon.”

“Maybe you’re right.” Tucker leans back again, closes his eyes. He’s so fucking tired. Simmons knows he’s tired. “But at least I don’t practically have a billboard tied to my ass projecting my loneliness to everything and everyone.”

“I do not—”

“I would like two stacks, Donut,” Caboose says over the top of him, loud enough that it nearly echoes in the small kitchen.

Simmons just stares, mouth still open, and when Caboose sees him, all he does is smile, like he didn’t do that on fucking purpose.

“Good,” Donut praises, but he’s looking at Simmons. Like he sees something there, like he wants

Simmons doesn’t know, really.

What it is that Donut wants.

“Tucker?”

“One’s fine,” he yawns, folding his arms over his stomach. He might be falling asleep there in his chair. Wouldn’t be the first time.

(Simmons probably shouldn’t let him, doesn’t have the heart to try.)

“You should make him two,” Caboose whisper-shouts, hand cupped around the side of his mouth.

Sometimes, Simmons wonders if he’s serious.

“I’m right fucking here, Caboose.”

“I thought you were sleeping.” Caboose doesn’t look at him, like Tucker can even see him avoiding eye contact. “Like you do every time we have breakfast with Simmons.”

“Technically, it’s actually our lunch break,” Simmons tells him, which is pretty much the dumbest thing he can do. He can’t really help himself.

Donut’s smile softens. “We’ll start with the one and see how he feels, okay Caboose?”

Caboose looks back at Tucker, whose head is tipped up towards the ceiling now, eyes still closed. His mouth curls down, almost imperceptible. It makes him look so deeply dissatisfied that it renders Simmons speechless. He’s never seen that look on Caboose before. “Okay,” he mumbles. His eyes drop to the table, where one armored thumb picks at the edge of the wood. “I guess that will be fine.”

Donut regards him a moment before sighing, his eyes sliding back to Simmons. He doesn’t look mad, not really, but there’s a significance to it that makes Simmons uncomfortable before he turns back around.

He doesn’t ask Simmons how many pancake stacks he wants.

It turns out he doesn’t have to.

He sets the first plate in front of Caboose, who devours them eagerly, but he sets the second in front of Simmons, four pancakes to Caboose’s three, and gives him a secret smile, a playful wink.

Simmons chokes over a thank you.

But he does eat them.

He doesn’t need a second stack, after all.

With a perfunctory nod and a quiet thanks to Donut, Tucker leaves for his afternoon jog as soon as he’s finished, before Simmons can remind him to grab some fucking water, please, just this once, which isn’t enough to ruin his mood completely, but does nothing at all to improve it. It’s the third time this week he’s ducked out before either of them could stop him, and Simmons thinks he’s doing it on purpose, but can’t confront him about it because Tucker’s not

Well.

He feels a little guilty, anyway, that they can’t catch him, but he ate everything on his plate today, so that’s something.

Caboose helps him wash dishes, because he always does now (wrangling him their first week of shared meals had been a pain in the ass, but Simmons has dealt with Grif for years, and he thinks he actually likes helping, even if he insists he doesn’t really want to) while Donut hovers uselessly nearby.

He’d protested first, but this is part of Caboose’s routine, and Simmons didn’t want to— to break that.

Oh god.

Oh god, he’s really been spending too much time with the blues. He’s mother-henning the shit out of these ungrateful assholes and they’re never going to acknowledge it, not any of them, because they’d explode.

Jesus Christ.

Sarge would be rolling in his grave.

Well not really.

Probably not really.

He cared about them, in his own way, and it was part of why Simmons stayed. Part of why he can’t bear to leave them now.

Not even for Grif.

Maybe especially for Grif.

Maybe because a little part of Simmons thought they would always be together, the way Donut probably had, up until all of them left him alone on Chorus like a bunch of assholes.

Simmons can feel the eyes on the back of his head now, feels his shoulders hike up towards his ears. He wonders if Donut blames them. He would, probably.

Blames Donut, in turn.

Simmons wonders if he knows.

“Uhh, Donut,” Caboose says, loud enough that Simmons nearly flinches. He’s on rinse and drying duty, and he holds a plate so gingerly in his grasp, like he thinks it might shatter from touch alone.

Simmons doesn’t know, really.

Maybe it will.

“Caboose,” Donut answers, amusement lacing his words. He gives an easy smile, sitting there in his old chair (he hadn’t complained at breakfast, and Simmons hadn’t leaned away when he’d paused for a moment, looking between him and Tucker, before carefully taking the place next to him. Grif’s old place next to him).

“I think you should go outside,” Caboose tells him, in that tone that means he’s never been so sure about anything in his life. “Tucker is alone right now, and we don’t like that. It would be nice for you to go with him. Outside, where he is.”

Simmons turns his head slowly to look back at Caboose, speechless. What? What??

His face is set in neutral stone, but he’s not looking at Simmons. He’s staring right at Donut, dark blue eyes laser-focused on his—

Is Donut still his teammate?

Is he allowed to think that?

Donut stares for a long minute. He opens his mouth, closes it. Looks at Simmons. “Is Caboose kicking me out?” he asks in a stage-whisper.

Simmons can’t stop the snort from escaping, because he has no fucking idea, and because this has never happened before. “Looks like it, dude.”

“This is red base, right?” He tries for humor, but there is hurt, tingeing the corners of his words, and his eyes are on Simmons, not Caboose, when he says it.

Simmons doesn’t have the heart to tell him that it hasn’t felt like red base in months, because that’ll be admitting he’s lonely, and he’s not, really, he’s just

Alone.

But not alone-alone.

“He does have a point, Caboose.” It feels a little stilted. Chastising Caboose isn’t really his job; it’s Tucker's, or seems like it is, most days. “This is technically just as much his base as it is mine.”

If he didn’t know better (and he doesn’t, really), he’d call the look Caboose sends him annoyed. But instead of caving, like Simmons thinks he will, he digs his heels in, standing there, staring at Donut while Donut stares back at him.

All Simmons can do is wonder.

The staredown lasts another minute (which SImmons spends trying not to sink through the floor) before Donut caves, a quiet sight that sounds more like exasperation than anything else. Sounds tired. “Okay, okay. I can see when I am not wanted.”

“You are wanted,” Caboose assures him with a pinched smile. “Outside.”

That makes Donut laugh as he eases himself to his feet. Simmons doesn’t cringe away when he reaches around him to grab his helmet off the counter. “I s’pose I’ll get out of your hair, then, and into Tucker’s. I get the feeling he could use a stern talking to, anyways. Wish me luck!”

Caboose reaches out lightning fast and grabs Donut around the elbow as he turns to leave, giving it a gentle squeeze. “It’s really good to see you again, Admiral. I mean that.”

Donut softens, doesn’t look quite so sad. Simmons would call it fondness, if he knew any better. He puts his hand over Caboose’s briefly. “Thank you, Caboose. I promise to look after him, okay?”

Caboose takes a deep breath, and Simmons feels his teeth grind together for the expression that flickers across his face before he squashes it back down. Grief, or something like it. “Okay, Buttercrust. I trust you.” And then he lets go.

Donut reaches up and pats his face.

Caboose lets him. Christ, he lets him.

Simmons waits until his footsteps have faded down the hall before he speaks. “What the hell was that?”

Caboose sighs like Simmons is inconveniencing him, which is rude, but not entirely unheard of. He picks up the cup that Simmons set down last and holds it up to him. There’s a crack through the center. “Donut was staring at you. It was making you uncomfortable, which made me uncomfortable.” He pauses, turns the glass over thoughtfully before setting it back down. “Maybe that is why Tucker left.”

All Simmons can do is stare. He hasn’t broken anything with his new arm since Armonia.

He feels

He feels

He feels a way about it, for sure.

“Oh,” he manages, feigned disinterest that falls apart by the crack in his voice. He hadn’t really noticed, during breakfast. Or he thought– he just figured it was because Donut was caught up in his stories about Chorus, how things have changed since they left, how everyone was doing without them. He didn’t think—

He just didn’t think about it.

“It’s not that big of a deal,” Caboose shrugs. He goes back to drying the plates. His hands don’t really fit in the glasses, so Simmons does that part for him. “It was just kind of weird and sad.”

Simmons frowns. “That kinda sounds like a big deal to me.”

“Well— maybe it could have been? Back before, you know.” Caboose looks at him, and he gets that same faint smile on his face, a pale thing that doesn’t quite make it to the eyes. “But everything is kind of weird and sad now? So it feels pretty much the same.”

Simmons sits with that while they clean up. He’s not very good at talking to Caboose, never has been (that was usually Grif’s job, when the reds were babysitting him), and sometimes he doesn’t really know what he’s supposed to say. “You didn’t have to send him away.”

“Yeah.” Caboose gives the towel to Simmons when he holds out his hand for it. “But you see, I really do not like leaving Tucker alone. Don’t tell him I said that,” he adds quickly.

“Okay,” he agrees, can’t quite help the swell of fondness in his chest. “But I’m pretty sure he knows. You kind of follow him around the canyon, Caboose. He’s bound to catch on sooner or later.”

Caboose grimaces at this, shaking his head like it’s a serious problem, and not a childish argument he’s been having for over seven years.

Simmons wonders what it says about him, that Caboose and Tucker have noticed his discomfort, have both checked in with him in their own ways.

It doesn’t feel good, really.

He wanted to do better for them.

Be better.

He feels like he might be fucking that up.

“Tucker is not good at being alone,” Caboose says after a minute, as he’s lifting the plates into the cupboard. He looks over his shoulder at Simmons. “Like you are not good at being alone.”

“I can handle being alone,” Simmons says defensively. Juvenile, like he’s really capable of having an actual argument with Caboose, of all people. 

“That’s not what Church said.” His grin is easy, genuine. He wiggles his eyebrows, a bad mimic of Tucker from better days. It’s bizarre, albeit hilarious. “He said when he found you after we went into the future that you were acting ‘desperate and crazy’.”

Simmons goes red, from his neck to the roots of his hair, he can feel it, has nowhere to hide. “How do you even remember that?”

“I remember everything Church said,” Caboose says proudly. Pauses, frowns, brow knitting. “Or I try to. It gets a little fuzzy sometimes. But that is why I have a list!”

Simmons doesn’t ask. If he’s learned anything from Grif, it’s that some blue team problems are better left alone. “So you feel like you’re taking care of him, then. Tucker.”

“It’s kind of my job now,” Caboose admits, like it’s a tragedy. He opens his mouth, closes it. Looks deeply uncomfortable. Looks his own age, for a brief moment in time, feet shifting from left to right and back again.

“Caboose,” Simmons starts. Doesn’t really know what to say. It kind of fucks with his head, that Tucker thinks he has to take care of Caboose, and Caboose thinks he has to take care of Tucker.

Simmons thought he was supposed to—

Not take care of them, per se, but – but help both of them?

Maybe?

Clearly he’s doing a shitty fucking job.

Some sergeant he makes.

Caboose’s face twists lemon sour. He takes a deep breath, opens his mouth again, then turns 180 and walks back to the table, wedging his helmet over his head.

Simmons chokes on a laugh, can’t stop the smile.

It feels like he’s avoiding the subject.

He has no idea why, but it makes him feel— normal. Almost. Something close.

“You don’t have to try so hard,” Simmons says, though it comes awkward. Stilted. Unlike him. But that’s kind of the point, isn’t it? He’s trying to change. Trying to be better, whatever the fuck that means. “Both of you should just—” He pinches the bridge of his nose. Sighs. “Maybe Grif is right. I am not equipped to handle blue team problems.”

Caboose looks up at him, shaking his head. “It’s not that hard, Simmons. You just have to listen when people are talking.” His voice is more patient than usual, slow, like he’s picking his words carefully. If that’s possible for him.

(That was mean. Simmons is being mean again. He really needs to knock it the fuck off. He spends every day with Caboose, he knows he’s capable, that he’s smarter than he seems. That felt meaner than he meant it, too. Dammit.)

“Right now, Tucker needs someone who believes in him. For real believes in him. I don’t mind being that person. At least until Wash gets back.” He seals his helmet with practiced ease, and Simmons privately worries about what they’ll do if there comes a time where they can’t fix it anymore. When he has to upgrade.

If they have to upgrade again.

If they don’t leave.

Not that Simmons thinks they would leave, it would just be unrealistic to

It doesn’t matter.

It’s just another thing he’ll have to think about for the rest of the day, maybe the rest of the week.

Caboose looks more comfortable, more like himself, with his helmet on. He picks up Freckles and cradles him to his chest. “We all need someone to believe in us sometimes, Simmons. And I think it helps when you really mean it, anyway.”

Simmons opens his mouth. Closes it. “Caboose—”

“Okay, bye.”

He can’t even laugh.

Or he can, and does, as Caboose walks away in his usual loping gait.

He scrubs a hand gently over his face.

Jesus Christ.

It’s bad when Caboose is the one giving you advice.

Simmons pushes his hair back out of his eyes and puts on his helmet.

When he steps back out into the sunshine, Caboose is already halfway across the canyon, on a clear path towards blue base. He can’t say he’s not relieved, because he is. It’s halfway to normal for all of them, Tucker leaving after lunch, Caboose following Tucker. What’s Simmons going to do? Complain about it?

Hell no.

He takes all his meals with the blues now, has to listen to their incessant arguing about every little thing: who’s going to do the dishes after breakfast (Tucker), who’s going to do them after dinner (both of them), who’s going to clean up the pillow fort that’s taken over the entire living room (spoilers: it’s neither of them), why did Caboose use Tucker’s toothbrush, again, why didn’t Tucker write his name on it, if he didn’t want to share, again, why does Caboose only do his chores when Simmons asks, but not Tucker, why does Tucker ask stupid questions he already knows the answer to, and sometimes, on a bad day, a really, really bad day, about Wash, if Caboose is stupid enough to bring him up at all.

So no, he’s not going to complain.

Because quite frankly?

He could use the peace and fucking quiet.

He spends these early afternoons alone, now. It’s not so bad. It used to bother him at first, standing on top of the base by himself (without Grif), clutching an unfamiliar weapon (Sarge’s weapon) and wearing armor that still felt new, despite all the ways it felt old, too. Blood Gulch felt like a lifetime ago, like a distant memory, something he dreamed about out of security, instead of anything like love.

This is where he met Sarge.

This is where he met everyone else (everyone except Grif).

Simmons hadn’t really known what to do, back then. Doesn’t really know what to do now.

But he’ll be okay, because he has to be okay. Because he’s always been okay.

And he has work to do, anyway.

He heaves a sigh (it fogs up his visor, but only for a second, and no one can see it, so it’s fine, okay, it’s lame but no one saw so it’s fine) and starts off towards the warthog.

It’s been two months (it’s only been two months) but he can’t get the damn thing running for more than a few minutes before it chokes and dies, and he spends the first forty-five minutes reading the manual (again) just in case he missed something.

Not that he fully understands what he’s reading; Simmons’ specialty was never automotive, because he always had Sarge or Grif or Lopez to fall back on.

He watches two suits of armor, one aqua, one blue, come back up over the hill in the middle of the canyon, making their way around the back side of red base.

They’re walking, today. That’s a good sign.

It also means he’ll have more time to himself, for at least another hour, unless Caboose gets bored.

And he will get bored, because he always gets bored (and if he doesn’t get bored first, he and Tucker will get into a petty argument, second, which Simmons will be expected to settle over dinner. He won’t admit it, but he doesn’t actually mind it as much as he says he does).

It gives him more time with the warthog, at least.

Caboose has offered to help, but.

It’s Simmons’ project. He wants to be the one who fixes it.

It’d be easier if it was a software issue.

“It’d be easier if Tex hadn’t thrown you across the canyon,” he tells it for no good reason. He lets his head drop back against the driver’s seat, closes his eyes. “I have no idea how to fix you.”

“Did you check the fuel injector?”

Simmons jumps so hard he slams his left elbow into the horn before he can stop himself, fumbling for his weapon, whirling around to see

“Donut! Holy shit, you scared me half to death!”

He puts his hands up in surrender. “Sorry! Caboose told me you’ve been havin’ some trouble, so I thought I’d come by and see if I could help. You know I’m always happy to lend a hand to a man in need!”

“Right.” Simmons doesn’t protest when he leans against the open window, folding his arms over the door and peering his head in.

“So, officer, what seems to be the problem?”

“Do you even know how to fix a car, Donut?” It comes out defensive, a touch too mean, but he’s already said it, and he can’t take it back, and he regrets it immediately for how Donut goes silent, staring at him visor to visor for a long moment in time.

“Vehicle maintenance is a part of basic training, Simmons,” he says eventually, voice amused, but bordering on irritated.

It’s a rare thing, Donut annoyed.

Simmons isn’t sure how he feels about it.

Should probably feel bad, because he’s being a jackass. Again.

“I may be dumb, but I’m not stupid.” He grabs the edge of the frame and uses it to hoist himself up over Simmons and into the passenger seat. “I am pretty rusty, though. They mostly run M381s and Mongeese on Chorus. I haven’t worked on one of these bad boys in a few years.” He pats the interior with a genuine kind of affection, and Simmons looks away.

Guilt, or something like it.

“To be honest,” he says, instead of letting them sit there in that awkward silence, “I don’t even really know if it was in working order before we got here. That was always Lopez’s job, and he hasn’t been here since Sarge called him to Valhalla.” He curves a hand along the edge of the wheel. “I think I just wanted to fix something, you know?”

“Because you can’t fix the blues,” Donut says breezily.

“Donut,” Simmons warns.

“Simmons,” Donut returns.

“I’m not trying to fix them,” he says defensively.

“It kinda feels like you are.” The back of his hand reaches towards Simmons. He aborts the motion. “And it sounds like you’re not being very subtle about it. You know Tucker thought you were the one to send me after him?”

“What did he do when you told him it was Caboose?”

“He laughed at me,” Donut admits.

That makes Simmons laugh, too, a self-conscious little thing that sticks in his throat. “He really doesn’t notice how much Caboose hovers over him, does he.”

“Or he thinks you’re a big, red, overbearing babysitter. His words, not mine,” he adds, when Simmons shoots him a look.

“I’m not babysitting them,” he huffs. “I’m just— trying to be a friend.”

“Friends trust each other,” Donut points out.

Or believe in each other, he thinks, a little lamely.

“Friends get to be trusted when they can make it through three meals a day without falling asleep at the table.”

“Gosh, is that what they were arguing about?”

Simmons pulls a face that Donut cannot see, lets the curiosity leak through. “You were there.”

“Well yeah, but.” He gestures to his right side, flippant, but deliberate. 

That makes Simmons frown. “I thought they fixed that on Chorus.”

Donut wags a finger in his face, friendly chastisement. “Pobody’s nerfect, Simmons!”

He snorts softly, mentally kicks himself for it.

“And besides,” he can hear the grin in Donut’s voice, acknowledgement that he caught that little snort, “it’s really only a problem when I’m out of armor. The radio helps compensate, but when I take off my helmet, sometimes it can be a little annoying.”

“Don’t you spend most of your time in meetings, now?” Tucker had asked about it during lunch, but Donut’s explanation of just what it was he did had been vague, maybe a little dismissive, like he didn’t really want to say.

Now he hums, taps a finger on the center console. Settles on, “It wasn’t so bad,” with a shrug.

“I don’t believe you, but it’s not really any of my business.” Simmons looks out through the windshield and sees Caboose and Tucker, standing together by Sarge’s grave.

“What are they doing?” Donut asks, leaning towards him to get a better look, a little closer than Simmons probably would have been comfortable with, before. He’s not sure he minds now.

Maybe he is getting lonely, after all.

Or not lonely, just.

Well.

It doesn’t matter.

Simmons shrugs. “Same thing they do every day. Y’know, for how hard Epsilon said Caboose was to predict, the guy keeps a pretty normal schedule.”

“Yeah,” Donut sighs softly, that same gentle fondness. “He was like that on Chorus, too.”

“What?”

Donut’s turn to huff. He knocks the side of his helmet against Simmons’. Simmons doesn’t flinch away. “Whaddya mean, what? You’re acting like you’ve never talked to either of them before. It’s just Caboose, being Caboose. Jeez, Simmons.”

Simmons is afraid to admit how wrapped up he’d been in other things at the time. Selfish things. He hadn’t noticed pedestrian things like Caboose’s schedule, or stuff he keeps track of now like what time the blues get up and how many hours Tucker spends circling the edge of the canyon, like an animal caged.

Maybe because he had Grif, then.

Grif noticed things like that.

Simmons

Well.

Simmons is just Simmons.

“I was caught up in other things, I guess,” he says in a sigh. It feels like an admission of guilt.

“Caught up in other things like Grif,” Donut says, like it’s true.

Simmons scowls, because maybe it is.

“Donut,” he repeats.

“Simmons.” Easy, unafraid. He leans back in his seat, out of Simmons’ space. They both watch Caboose put his hand on Tucker’s elbow, a fragile mirror. Watch Tucker keep it there, for the first time in these long two months. “You could have asked him to stay,” he says thoughtfully.

Simmons drags his eyes away, hears his voice crack, something like surprise. Like warning. “What?”

Donut doesn’t bother looking at him. “Grif, duh. He asked you to go with him. You could have asked him to stay.”

Simmons feels anger rise like heat in his veins, feels his neck start to burn before his suit can rush to cool him. “I’m the one who filed the paperwork, Donut. Because that’s what he wanted, what he—”

“Always wanted, I know, you keep saying that,” Donut groans, long past irritated. “And you still haven’t answered me, Dick. What do you want?”

“I want you to stop asking me what I want,” he snaps.

Donut stands his ground. “Well tough tomatoes, Simmons, because I’m not gonna stop. Grif left and took half your good sense with him, and you’re not doin’ yourself any favors pretending you don’t want that back!”

“You’re acting like I’m in love with him,” he marvels, at a loss for anything else to say.

Donut tips his head to the side. Not curious, but sincere. Earnest. “Aren’t you?”

Simmons can’t help: he laughs, a fragile little thing just this side of desperate for the truth in Donut’s words, no matter how ridiculous it feels.

Isn’t he?

Doesn’t he—

But he can’t say that, because he’s the one who let Grif go.

(Grif is the one who didn’t stay.)

(Simmons didn’t ask.)

(Simmons left the door open and didn’t ask him to stay, anyway.)

Belatedly he says, “Don’t call me Dick.”

Donut reaches out and grabs onto the wheel, opposite side Simmons’. He leans in closer again, like he has to, like they’re not both wearing helmets, and asks in a low, careful voice, “What do you want, Simmons?”

And he breaks.

“I want,” he starts. Stops. Breathes. His stomach turns over like a car engine, his chest goes tight. When his eyes start to burn, he slams them shut, even though Donut cannot see. “I want—”

He wants everything to go back to the way it was.

He wants things to stop changing.

He wants

He wants

He wants.

“I want Sarge to be alive. Hell, I want Church to be alive. I want Wash to come back so we can pretend red and blue are real again, and I want to waste our time arguing about who sucks and whose turn it is to drive the warthog and who’s actually in charge in this godforsaken canyon, instead of watching Tucker and Caboose walk around looking so fucking lost, Donut, you have no idea, but I don’t know how to help them, I don’t know how to help anyone, and I want—”

And he wants Grif.

More than anything else, in ways he cannot quantify, he wants Grif.

“I’ve been so fucking lonely,” he murmurs, and this time it is a confession. He opens his eyes and sees his reflection in Donut’s visor. “I want to see Grif again. It’s stupid, and it’s humiliating. But I want to see him. I want to tell him—” He stops.

His reflection doesn’t look uncertain. Can’t look uncertain. But it gives him courage, all the same.

“I’m not actually sure yet,” he confesses. “But I can’t leave them here alone, Donut. I won’t.”

“You don’t have to,” Donut whispers, and though Simmons’ voice is steady, his wavers. “You don’t have to.”

He inhales. Exhales. Lets go of the warthog’s wheel. “I’m not sure I could convince them to leave when Wash is still out of commission.”

He’s not sure he wants to.

Tucker’s determination to rescue Agent Washington on Chorus had been

Intimidating, to say the least.

“They do seem awfully fond of him,” Donut says, like he’s remarking on the weather, instead of talking about the only people in the world who can stand either of them for more than five minutes.

“Yeah.” Simmons hesitates, then adds, “Donut—”

“Hello!”

Caboose pops up on the driver’s side and Simmons slams the horn for the second time today.

“God. Dammit, Caboose!”

Donut splutters, which becomes helpless laughter.

Simmons sighs. “What do you want, Caboose?”

“I got bored,” he admits, helmet tipping in apology.

Simmons knew it would happen sooner or later, but he can see Tucker doubled over laughing by red base. Fucker.

“Simmons,” Caboose says, voice reproachful. “Are you letting Donut help you with the jeep?”

“No,” Simmons says, a little too quickly.

Donut leans around him to look at Caboose. “Why not?”

“Not helping,” he hisses.

“The jeep is Simmons’ very special project,” Caboose tells Donut anyway, like it’s a secret. “He won’t let me help, even though I am really good at stuff like this.”

“That doesn’t sound very nice,” Donut says. Simmons can hear him grinning. Resents him for it.

Caboose nods solemnly. “He always says ‘we’ll see’ but we never see anything, and the car still won’t start.” He pats the side of it, the same fond way Donut had earlier. “But that’s okay. There’s still some time.”

“Sure,” Donut says, in that same genuine way. He casts a glance sidelong at Simmons. “What do you think the problem is, Caboose? If you had to guess.”

Simmons shakes his head shortly, but Donut ignores it, and Caboose either doesn’t see or doesn’t care.

“Fuel pump,” he says immediately. To Simmons he whispers, “That is the part that puts the fuel into the engine,” loud enough that even Donut can hear.

All he does is laugh, soft and breathy.

“I know that,” Simmons says through grit teeth.

(He had only assumed that. He knew— he knows some things. Vehicle maintenance is a part of basic, after all.)

“Okay,” Caboose says. Thinks for a moment, then adds, “Diesel is very bad for electric vehicles,” before he walks off to where Tucker is basically rolling in the grass.

Simmons can’t say he’s angry to see him laughing. He’s just not entirely pleased it’s at his expense.

He hears Donut’s tongue click as he opens his mouth to speak. “Do you want me to check—”

“No.”

“It would only take—”

“No,” he says from between his teeth. “I’ve got it under control.”

“If you say so,” Donut says airily. He watches Caboose say something to Tucker, then lift an arm, waving it wildly. Tucker just laughs harder. “He sure is excitable, dontcha think?”

“Beats the alternative,” Simmons mutters, finally climbing out of the warthog, fumbling for his datapad.

“You’re just gonna work on the warthog and ignore me, huh?” Donut calls.

“I was trying to work on it before you came out here and interrupted me.”

“Are you going to check the fuel pump or the injector first?”

Simmons grunts.

Donut just laughs again, loud and bright, settling back in the passenger seat to watch him work.

He doesn’t bring up Grif again, and Simmons is grateful.

“I just want to warn you, it’s a little messy.”

They’re standing outside blue base, the light sinking low now on their little ring world, and Simmons is blocking the path with one foot.

Donut huffs, both hands on his hips. “I’ve lived in a base with Grif, you know. A little bit of dirt isn’t going to hurt me!”

“It’s blue dirt?” he offers.

“Oh shucks, just let me in already.” He shoulders past Simmons, bumping his hip hard against him as he goes. “You worry too much, Simmons.”

Simmons sighs, tipping his head to the sky. He takes off his helmet, sucks in the evening air.

It’s nice that they get those now. Evenings.

He spent too long working on the warthog and hadn’t had the time to change out of his armor before dinner, and he regrets it now for how heavy he feels. It was nice to be pointed in a real direction for once, but he was definitely not cut out for real mechanic work. Maybe he should let them help, after all.

He still doesn’t want to do this.

What would Sarge say, eating at blue base, every single night like it’s a second home?

But Tucker cooks, really cooks, dinner, something like an apology, at least three nights a week, with real food instead of rations, or real food made out of rations, and if he’s being honest, it’s generally the meal Simmons looks forward to the most.

It’s an odd thing to feel, especially now.

He runs into Donut’s back, not paying attention in the dimly lit hall, lined in blue (go figure).

Donut stands at the edge of the living room, helmet cradled under his arm. He looks— well. He looks a little dumbstruck. “It’s,” he breathes. “It’s so—”

“Disastrous,” Simmons suggests dryly.

The fortress (and it is a fortress now, a fucking monster of a thing) takes up the entire living space. Blankets and sheets are strewn across every available surface, including the couch and TV, creating a series of interconnected tents that nearly work well enough to block out the concrete grey ceiling.

“It’s magnificent,” he breathes. Pauses, whirls on Simmons, eyes sparkling.

He pulls a face. “Absolutely not. We are not making a blanket fort.”

“What? Come on! Ours can be twice this big!”

Simmons doesn’t budge, because he’s not a child. “No it can’t, because it was built by Caboose.”

“I guess he does have a longer reach than most people,” Donut muses, wrapping his hand around the blue team flag, which stands at the entrance to the fort.

“I’d actually prefer if you didn’t touch my pole,” Tucker says, and they both jump to find him leaning in the doorway, arms folded over each other.

“Bow chicka bow wow?” Simmons offers.

Tucker’s dressed down in fatigues and a faded blue t-shirt, and the look he gives Simmons is flat, as well as deeply unimpressed. “You only get one of those a fortnight,” he reminds him. To Donut he says, “I’d prefer you didn’t touch that because it’s load-bearing. You tug on that, and the whole thing comes apart. One a fortnight,” he reminds Simmons, when he opens his mouth again.

“Simmons! Donut!” Caboose is still in his armor, because he always is, right up until bedtime (some habits are too hard to break, and not worth the fight, because they involve the W word) but his helmet is missing, and the smile he gives them as he appears behind Tucker is bright, all straight white teeth and genuine affection. “Do you want to eat dinner in the blanket fort with me?”

“We are not eating spaghetti in the blanket fort,” Tucker says, before either of them can speak.

“It does not have to be spaghetti,” Caboose suggests.

“What? Dude, no, I already started, I’m not going to remake dinner just because you—”

“If we do not bring the sauce—”

“You can’t eat plain ass noodles for dinner, again. I worked my ass off on this sauce, Caboose, do you hear me? I practically breathed new life into this bitch and we are not going to let it go to waste, not after I—”

“But—”

“I said no—”

“What if we bring towels?” Donut interrupts.

Simmons marvels at the way Caboose and Tucker cease their bickering, turning towards them in unison. The height difference between them is always a bit laughable, but it’s borderline ridiculous with Caboose in power armor and Tucker beside him, socked feet and blue fatigues.

“Towels,” Tucker repeats, just this side of incredulous.

“For the sauce,” Donut says, like this isn’t a ridiculous conversation for four adult men to be having.

Tucker stares for a long moment, eyebrows furrowed, mouth a thin line. He turns to Caboose, cocks an eyebrow.

Whatever passes between them, Simmons doesn’t know enough to parse (he envies it, a little, and misses Grif, misses their friendship, then).

“I will get the towels,” Caboose says, way too fucking eager. He turns to leave, catches himself in the doorway, beaming at Donut. “Thanks, Donut.”

“Sure,” he says, easy as anything, mouth turned up with something like humor.

Caboose’s eyes crinkle at the corners, and for a moment Simmons thinks he’ll say something else. But he doesn’t, just disappears back the way he came.

“If he makes a mess, you’re cleaning it up,” is all Tucker says, pointing at them with an accusatory finger. There’s a beat of time while he ties his apron tighter, and they watch him. Simmons can’t really tell what he’s thinking (some days it feels harder than others), but he just sighs, tacks on a quiet “Thanks,” before heading into the kitchen.

Donut turns to look at Simmons, a complicated expression on his face.

“I know,” he says, because he doesn’t know what else to.

“Are they like that all the time?” Donut’s tone is amused, but his eyes follow after Tucker and Caboose as they head along the canyon wall on their after-dinner walk. 

Simmons shrugs and makes a noncommittal sound, dragging a hand back through his hair absently.

They got through dinner without any damage to the fort, as Tucker requested (demanded), but Simmons had managed, through some nightmarish karmic justice, to get sauce on the inside of his helmet, and it sits beside him on the roof of red base, newly washed and drying in the evening air.

“Pretty much. Well— only when Tucker tells Caboose what to do.”

“Which is every day,” Donut guesses, lopsided smile as he turns back towards Simmons.

“Which is every day,” he agrees. He watches Donut kick his feet back and forth off the side of the base, casual, comfortable. He feels

He feels a lot about it, actually.

I’ve been so fucking lonely, he said.

Christ , he said it out loud. Why did he do that?

Why is it that Donut makes him… feel so much?

(In another world, in a perfect world, maybe Simmons would admit that it’s because he trusts Donut. Even if he makes him uncomfortable, even if he demands truths that he’s not ready for. Simmons trusts him.)

“Donut,” he begins, trying to keep his voice level, genuine, but not accusatory. “What are you actually doing here?”

Donut blinks at him, eyes wide and pretty as they’ve ever been. “Huh? What do you mean?”

“I mean, it’s kind of obvious you have a whole life back there,” he motions flippantly towards the sky, “on Chorus. You have a job and an office and probably people who follow you around all day, asking if you need anything, and how you’re doing, and saying ‘yessir!’ like pleasing you is their whole life’s goal—”

Donut’s mouth parts, his eyebrows bunching together. “Simmons—”

“But you’re here, Donut.”

Donut has almost everything Simmons ever wanted for himself, but instead he’s here.

He’s here, with them.

He fixes his eyes on Donut, firm, serious. “You could have sent a letter. You could have sent fucking flowers. But you didn’t. So what are you doing here?”

Maybe he should feel worse for the way Donut slumps into himself like a deflated balloon, shoulders hiking up towards his ears, expression cowed.

At first, he thinks he won’t answer him.

At first, he thinks Donut might start to cry.

But then he hears it, that click of Donut’s tongue against the roof of his mouth as he opens it to speak. “I think I just—” He looks out over the canyon again, blue following aqua, inch by inch. “Missed it.” He raises his hand, gestures vaguely. “This. The bases, the blues, everyone together.” He looks at Simmons, that same heartbreak he wore in the kitchen just this morning. “You, Simmons.”

Simmons feels that tightness in his chest again. “Things are different now.” There’s a raw quality to his voice he cannot control, emotion that chokes him. He hadn’t cried when Grif left. He won’t start, now. “Donut, everything is different now.”

“I know,” he says, eyes bunching up as he smiles. He reaches out and puts his hand on top of Simmons’. Simmons sucks in air, but doesn’t pull away. “But you were alone, so I came back.”

It takes him a moment to process that, staring at pink armor sitting harmlessly on top of his mechanical hand, a point of contact Simmons can’t really feel, but wants to, in that moment, desperately.

And then it hits him, and he jerks away, not uncomfortable, just. Startled. “Wait, what?”

Donut frowns, looking put out, maybe a little annoyed (Simmons thinks, entirely privately, that he looks like a spoiled child). “I came back. The war is over, and the UNSC oversight committee moved in months ago. I’m not an ambassador anymore, they don’t actually need me.”

Simmons inhales, holds it for a moment before letting go. “Donut—”

“I really did have sick time saved up,” he says, all in a rush, like he’s afraid Simmons will tell him no. “And it’s not like I have anywhere else I’d rather be!”

It’s not like I have anywhere else to go, sits unsaid between them.

But it’s something Simmons can’t imagine, now.

Donut leaving a life of security and comfort, to sit in the middle of bumfuck nowhere with no one for company but Simmons, Caboose, and Tucker.

“What about your fleet?” he tries, not angry, just. Alarmed. Confused. Offended? He can’t be offended. He can’t be flattered, either, but he shouldn’t be offended. “What about your admiralty?”

“Being in charge really isn’t all it’s cracked up to be, SImmons.” Donut’s smile, when he gives it, is faint, a little sour. “You should know that. Besides, you need to even the teams, and there’s no man I’d rather be directly under!”

Simmons isn’t playing along, because this is a serious fucking matter, and going AWOL, for real, is a serious offense. “They really just let you go? Just like that?”

Donut grimaces. Looks older, then. Looks like a soldier, then. “I told them I needed a vacation. Kinda hard to argue with one of the people who helped you save your planet.” His eyes drop to his lap, where he’s folded his hands together, letting them twist around each other. Empty hands. None of them have ever been good with empty hands. “But to be honest, I think Kimball figured out my plan from the start. She told me to take care, and say hi to the others. So I thought I’d just, y’know.” He shrugs, looks back at Simmons with that complicated expression, that something he can’t understand. “Stay here. With you.”

Simmons’ breath hitches, emotion crawling up his throat to choke him.  “Donut, I don’t even know if I—”

“I’m staying,” Donut interrupts him stubbornly. “Even if you don’t want me to. I’m staying with you until you’re ready to leave.”

Simmons frowns. “I never said I was leaving.” He had, in fact, been pretty adamant about staying.

“You said you wanted to see Grif again,” Donut says, like he’s stupid. “I’m pretty sure he’s not comin’ back here, which means we’ll just have to go find him out there.”

“I can’t,” he whispers.

He does want to see Grif again.

It’s what he wants, what he really, really wants.

But,

“Donut, I can’t.”

“So you’re just going to wait for Wash to come back, so he can, what? Take care of the blues for you? Simmons, please, listen, you can’t put your life on hold for other people forever.”

His frown becomes a scowl. “I have not—”

“Sarge is gone!” Donut shouts, eyes wide and wet, like the words burst out before he could stop them. “You don’t have to stay for him, Simmons. None of us have to stay for him.”

Simmons closes his eyes, because he knows that. Because it hurts, all the way down. Because he doesn’t like thinking about it, but he knows it’s true. Instead he says, “Tucker’s not going to leave the canyon without Wash, and I’m pretty sure Caboose won’t leave without Tucker.” He looks at Donut, gives him a wry smile. “He’ll deny it, if you ask, but it’s one of the few things I’m really sure of, these days.”

“So it all comes back to Washington,” Donut sighs.

“Yeah.” Tucker and Caboose have disappeared back over the hill. “Do you know? How Wash has been doing, I mean. Caboose calls him every night, but he doesn’t really talk about it, at least not with me.”

He can’t really talk about it at all, without it becoming a huge fucking fight between him and Tucker.

He doesn’t say that to Donut.

To his surprise, Donut shrugs. “His leg has almost fully healed, last I heard. Femurs take a lot longer, but I don’t know much about that. The most recent report seemed promising. Seems like he’s managed to screw his head back on mostly the right way ‘round, ‘n that’s more than most people can ask for. Maybe going on some nutso adventure to save you guys really helped unscramble his brain, after all.”

Simmons stares for one beat, then two. Says, slowly, “You get reports on Wash?”

Donut swings one leg absently, but he’s staring back at Sarge again. “Mm. Grey sends them herself.”

He opens his mouth. Closes it. Nearly laughs, but can’t quite make it. “Jesus, Donut, doesn’t that seem a little— I don’t know, cruel?”

“He was the one seeing Doc, not me,” he says coldly. Sighs in exasperation when Simmons keeps staring at him like he’s got two heads, dragging a hand through his too-long hair. “I didn’t exactly have a choice, Simmons. Besides, there’s no way Grey is letting him go until that leg is fully healed. Ditto for Carolina’s wrist. You should’ve seen the colors it turned.” He shudders. “I thought I was gonna faint.”

Simmons doesn’t bring up the hypocrisy of Donut visiting Carolina but not Wash. It doesn’t feel worth it to argue.

Wash was seeing Doc, and he is the one who shot Donut, at the end of the day.

“You think it’ll be much longer? Either of them.”

“I think Wash will come back. Carolina…” He takes a deep breath, lets it out slowly. “It’s actually really hard to tell with her, you know? I think she likes keeping busy. Maybe she’d be better suited for a job like mine, anyway.”

“Right. Admiral.”

Donut looks at him sidelong. “Technically, it’s still rear admiral.”

Simmons feels his face crack in two, cannot stop it. “It is fucking not—”

“No,” he laughs. “But it’d be funnier if that were true.”

Simmons snorts, unimpressed. “Yeah. I suppose it would.”

It feels easier now, to joke with Donut. When he arrived this morning it felt like a lifetime since they’d seen each other, and he realizes, belatedly, that Donut hadn’t tried to hug him.

He feels

Ashamed.

It jolts him out of his thoughts when Donut speaks again, low and thoughtful. “He apologized, you know.”

“Who? Wash?”

“Mm. Before everyone left, and Tucker disappeared. He apologized for Doc, like it was his fault, like it would have made a difference if he—” He cuts himself off, inhales sharply through his nose.

Simmons hums, turns that over in his head. Wash’s tired grey eyes, filled to the brim with unimaginable grief, are something he’s spent months trying to erase from his mind. “Did you forgive him?”

For some reason that makes Donut laugh, a sharp, mean little thing that’s so unlike him, it takes Simmons by surprise. “No, I didn’t.”

“Oh.” He sits with that. It doesn’t quite line up with the image of Donut he keeps in his head, and he’s not quite sure what to do about it. What comes out is, “That doesn’t seem very fair of you.”

Donut lets out a derisive snort, and for the first time, he sees real anger on his face, a scowl that doesn’t match the natural upturn of his mouth. “Not fair of me? He’s the one who blames himself for Doc dying when he shouldn't have even been there at all! He didn’t make Doc fight in that battle, no one did, and if anyone’s to blame, it should be me for not stopping him in the first place!” He stops, mouth snapping shut so fast Simmons hears his teeth click together.

It should have occurred to him before, that Donut might blame himself for Doc’s death.

They were

Something.

Close.

He knows that.

“I’m sorry, Donut,” he says, because it’s the right thing to do. He keeps his voice low, as close to gentle as he can get it. His best approximation of that voice Tucker uses, on days that Caboose has his migraines.

He wonders where he learned it.

Decides he doesn’t really have a right to know (but he remembers the crash site on Chorus, remembers Wash’s apology to Caboose, remembers wishing— it doesn’t matter).

“Doc probably wouldn’t want you to blame yourself for that. He wanted to be there, he just—”

“You don’t know what Frank wanted,” Donut stops him, voice shaking, expression wild with hurt. “Because none of you know anything about him.”

Simmons grimaces.

He’s right.

He shouldn’t have said anything.

Donut sucks in air, holds it for one second, then five, before he lets go in a sigh. “But you’re right.” He coughs wetly, scrubbing a hand across his eyes. “And I know that. It doesn’t change the way I feel about it.”

There are days when Simmons wishes he hadn’t said anything, thinks that maybe, if he hadn’t, Sarge wouldn’t have turned around and agreed to help Caboose.

Knows, deep down, that he would have done it anyway.

Did, in the end, even when they all ran away.

Simmons thinks that if only he had been the last one in, maybe it would have been okay, because he’s a cyborg. Maybe he could have survived it.

But he doesn’t know.

Can’t know.

Will never know.

What he says is, “You’ve always been better at that than the rest of us.” He looks at Donut. “Feelings.”

Donut snuffles, lets out a little croak that might be laughter. “Shoot, you don’t have to tell me twice. It’s like, actually kind of sad sometimes. If we had been more honest with each other, we probably coulda avoided a whole lot of our problems, huh?”

“Maybe,” Simmons murmurs. “Or we’d have just made them worse, because we’re us.”

Donut gives him a watery smile. “That’s true.”

A beat of silence, his heartbeat in one ear, the rush of cooling fluid in the other.

“After Doc died,” Donut says, in a voice so low and broken, “I didn’t know what to do with myself. Being with all of you just reminded me of—” He inhales deep, exhales a shaky gasp that sounds wet, all over again. “I was so angry. It wasn’t fair, but it’s true.” He looks at Simmons, sad blue eyes, swimming with tears. “I just felt like we could have saved him, if we tried a little harder, you know?”

Simmons doesn’t know, not really.

Donut looks away, wipes at his face futilely. “I know that’s stupid. M’sorry.”

He looks at Donut, the profile of his face, that scar that reaches from behind his ear towards the front of his face, faded with time, but no less violent in its design.

He's known this man for years, and he realizes, in a single moment, that he never really learned how to talk to him at all.

He owes Donut so much more than he's about to give him.

“Listen, Donut, I just wanted to say—” He swallows, hates himself, then says it anyway. “I wanted to say I’m sorry, again. I’m sorry you lost Doc, and I’m sorry none of us were there for you, when it happened. He didn’t deserve that, and neither did you. I know it’s too late, and it’s okay, if you don’t want to— but it’s true.” He looks at Donut, really looks, has no control over whatever deep sadness is on full fucking display. “I’m sorry.”

He’s expecting the tears.

He’s not expecting Donut to throw himself onto Simmons, wrapping his arms tight around his neck and dragging him down; Simmons has always been taller, but Donut is stronger, and he goes, and goes willingly, curves his arms around Donut’s back and hugs him, the first hug he’s had in two months (it’s only been two months, shit damn fuck, it’s been two fucking months).

“I wanted him there,” Donut says, like a confession. “I wanted him there with me. But I didn’t want to lose him. I never wanted to lose him.”

“I know,” Simmons says, because he does. He holds on tight, doesn’t let go. “I know.”

They stay like that for a while. Donut doesn’t say it’s okay, and Simmons doesn’t ask him to.

“Simmons?” Donut calls, as they head to their respective rooms.

Simmons stops, turns around full body. He feels emotionally drained, but he owes Donut now, so he waits.

Donut stands in the door to the old shared bunk, cradling his helmet in his hands like it’s a precious thing. His face is red and blotchy.

Simmons caves first, because he always caves first.

“Yes, Donut?”

“Thank you,” he says, sincere, but embarrassed. “For, um, listening to me. And stuff.”

SImmons feels exhaustion sit heavy on his shoulders, feels that crushing loneliness in the open and honest way that Donut stares. “Yeah. Sure thing, Donut.”

He meant to say, you’re welcome.

He meant to say, you’re not a burden.

But he’s so tired.

He wonders if Donut will be comfortable tonight, in a bed that’s been unused since Simmons found Grif’s note, since he ran away to the safety of an unfamiliar room to avoid

To avoid a lot of things, really.

“Goodnight,” he tacks on awkwardly.

(He doesn’t want to admit how long it’s been now, since he had someone to really, truly say goodnight to.)

Donut just smiles, like he knows, cheek dimpling on his left side. “Yeah. Goodnight, Simmons.”

Simmons wakes to the smell of coffee and there’s a brief moment in time where he can imagine that it’s Lopez in the kitchen, the one task he’d be willing to do for them all day without complaint. That Grif will be in the bunk beside him, rolling over with a groan as Sarge’s stupid, awful reveille goes off loud enough to wake the entire canyon.

He opens his eyes to stare at the ceiling of the CO’s quarters and experiences that sense of loss a bit harder today than most days.

Then he remembers that he forgot to set his alarm, so bone tired after that rooftop conversation with Donut that he had stripped his armor and fallen into bed almost immediately.

Shit, Donut.

He flings the covers back, swinging his legs over the side of the bed and stumbling upright, down the hall, and towards the kitchen. “Hey, Donut, we don’t—”

Donut whirls around, wearing an old t-shirt that clearly belongs to Simmons for how tight it fits him across the chest, takes him in, and lets out a wail of fear. “Simmons, your ARM—”

“What?” he gasps, goes to raise both arms in front of him, checking for fire, or snakes or–

Oh. Right.

He sighs, drops his right arm down. “Jesus, Donut, you scared me.” He kicks his bare leg out in front of him, wiggles his toes (the new leg lets him wiggle his toes. It’s pretty badass). “Cyborg, remember?”

Donut stares, mouth working up and down like a fish. “Oh,” he says dumbly. “Right. Or should I say, left?” A flash of teeth, wagging eyebrows.

Simmons does not laugh, rolls his eyes. Tries not to feel self-conscious about his empty port.

Does feel self-conscious about the fact that he forgot to put on pants.

“We eat breakfast at blue base,” he says before he turns to go, to escape, because he’s not wearing any fucking pants and his boxers are orange, of all fucking things.

“Blue base,” Donut repeats, with something like wonder. Simmons can’t really imagine why. Doesn’t care to.

“There’s no rule saying we can’t have coffee while we wait,” he offers. “The shit Tucker makes can be atrocious, if he didn’t get much sleep the night before. Might be safer this way.”

Donut is staring at him, eyes wide, sandy hair mussed. It looks a bit like a bird’s nest, makes him look like a rookie again, and Simmons feels fondness swell in his chest, very much against his will. “Wait for…?”

“Caboose comes by to tell me when breakfast is every morning.” He realizes, as soon as it’s out of his mouth, how insane it sounds. “I just— let me get my arm first.”

“Okay,” Donut says slowly, but he’s just standing there now, holding the coffee pot in one hand and a clean spatula in the other, like he’s ready to go to war.

Simmons retreats down the hall, feeling awkward about it for no reason at all.

It’s the fastest he’s gotten dressed since his first few weeks here in Blood Gulch, jamming his arm into the socket without bracing himself, regretting it immediately, and then dragging his pants on one-handed while cursing under his breath. They don’t need to wear armor to breakfast, though Caboose will, but he decides it’s not worth the trouble, and Donut looked comfortable, anyway.

He drags a jacket on so he won’t notice the goosebumps on Simmons’ skin from the jolt of attaching his arm and hurries back into the kitchen.

“And a good morning to you, mister,” Donut says, eyeing him cautiously as he slumps into his seat at the table.

“Is it?” Simmons rubs at his right eye, flinching when Donut sets a full mug down to that side.

He grimaces, tries to turn it into a smile. “Sorry,” he whispers.

Simmons just stares for a too-long moment. He can’t remember the last time there was someone around red base to pour him coffee.

(Grif had poured him coffee, on that last morning at the new base, before he and Simmons went out to feed the chickens.)

“No, it’s okay,” he says hurriedly. “I just—” And he realizes there’s no reason for him to lie. Not to Donut. “I do everything for myself these days.” And it feels less like humiliation, and more like aching loneliness. “I guess it’s just surprising, that’s all.”

The look on Donut’s face shifts from surprise to tragedy, and Simmons leans away, biting back a wince.

“You don’t have to say it,” he says, before Donut can open his mouth. “I already know, okay?”

Donut does not say it, though it’s clear how much he wants to, and he fetches a second mug before sinking into his old seat across from Simmons, all muscle memory. “So,” he says, instead of anything else, “breakfast at blue base.”

“Don’t start,” Simmons groans, dragging his hand back through his hair. It’s getting long. They really all could use a haircut. “They started inviting me last month. It felt rude to turn them down, so…” He waves the same hand absently about.

It had actually started when Tucker and Caboose barged in one afternoon during lunch and sat down at the red base table, staring at him in full armor.

Simmons hadn’t said a word, because he hadn’t really known what to say, just pulled two more MREs out of the pantry and put them down beside his.

When they hadn’t come back for dinner, Simmons had gone to them.

“I think it sounds nice,” Donut says, with that funny little smile again. “I ate alone, on Chorus.”

It’s a quiet little jab, but it doesn’t go unnoticed. What Simmons says is, “You know that’s my shirt, right? Tell me you didn’t go through my laundry.”

“I would,” Donut says slowly, teeth flashing before he hides them behind his mug, “but then I’d be lying.”

“Donut!”

“Aw, c’mon, Simmons! I couldn’t walk out here naked! You’d just yell at me, and it’s not very sanitary, cooking without pants on.”

Tell that to Tucker, Simmons thinks, but has the good sense not to say. He massages the bridge of his nose. “Donut—”

“I didn’t really pack anything before I left,” he says, a mumbled confession into his coffee. “I wasn’t really thinking. Kimball said I could go, so I just– left. I mean, it’ll be there when I get back, anyway.”

That makes him pause, cup halfway to his mouth. He looks at Donut and his sullen expression, dumbfounded. “What?”

“Well, you never really told me I could stay!” His voice is halfway to cheerful, but Donut won’t meet Simmons’ eyes. “I didn’t sell my apartment when I left, I just, y’know, left.”

“You said you wanted to stay,” Simmons huffs. “And that I couldn’t stop you.”

“But you didn’t invite me, either!” Donut’s cheeks burn pink, from anger or embarrassment, Simmons doesn’t know. “Even in your letter, you could have – but you didn’t!”

“I,” Simmons starts. Stops. His mouth opens. His mouth closes.

He hadn’t thought.

Of course he hadn’t thought.

“It wasn’t your problem anymore.”

It sounds true, but Donut’s mouth becomes a thin, flat line. He looks like he wants to say something, like he's angry, but he doesn't speak.

You could have been there, Simmons had said, right to his fucking face.

God.

Why does he keep doing that?

Simmons kicks himself mentally and then, for the second time that morning, he tells a hard truth.

It's harder in the daylight.

“You were done, and I was jealous. I didn’t ask, because I didn’t want to ask, because you were doing better than me, and I was just. Here. With all this.”

“But now I’m here,” Donut murmurs, like an offering.

“But now you’re here,” Simmons agrees.

Donut turns away, like he can’t look at Simmons anymore, or doesn’t want to. Simmons can't blame him. Or he can, but doesn't want to. His eyes wander to the clock on the far wall, and he stops. "It's past eight, now," he observes. "Caboose hasn’t stopped by yet. Is he usually late?”

“Only on Tuesdays,” Simmons shrugs. Pauses, then frowns. His alarm. His fucking alarm. “I usually wait on the roof. I may have fucked that up today.”

The look Donut gives him is full exasperation, like he cannot believe Simmons would forget this, of all things, rising to his feet in a hurry. “Simmons! If he expects you on the roof, no wonder we haven’t seen him! You’re so rude!”

He says it, but Simmons doesn’t feel guilty, or angry, or sad. Instead, it makes him laugh.

It makes his chest tight, but he laughs.

For reasons beyond his grasp, he grabs Donut by the wrist as he tries to rush by. “Stay,” he tells him. “I mean, I want you to— stay.”

“Caboose is waiting for us,” Donut says, like he’s stupid, tugging lightly. “You just told me that!”

“I know that,” he snaps. “That’s not what I— I want you to stay. Here, in Blood Gulch. With me. I’m asking you to.”

“Until you’re ready to leave,” Donut reminds him gently.

“Until I’m ready to leave,” Simmons corrects, doesn’t bother sounding annoyed.

“And then we’ll go find Grif,” Donut says, sliding his hand free until his fingers tangle with Simmons’. “Together.”

“Together,” Simmons breathes.

“Us and the blues,” he adds, like it’s obvious. Whatever wonder he sees in Simmons’ face makes him smile. “C’mon, we both know Tucker and Caboose couldn’t survive without their daily helping of Dick!”

“Please don’t say that ever again,” Simmons monotones, trying to pull away.

“Okay, okay, sorry, sorry,” Donut rushes, putting his other hand over Simmons’, holding them there. “But you know they’d come with, if you asked them to.”

“Not until Wash gets back,” he insists.

 Donut’s mouth ticks down briefly before he smooths it over. “Fine. But you know he’d come, too. You just have to ask.”

And Donut is right, as ridiculous as it is. He does know.

He can see Grif again.

He can tell him— something. Everything.

He can bring Donut.

He can bring the blues with him, whenever they go, because he can't stand the thought of leaving them behind, not here, not when they're all he has left.

All he has to do is ask.

“I will,” he says. Takes a deep breath, doesn’t let go of Donut’s hand. “When I’m ready, I’ll ask.”

“We can do it together,” Donut offers.

Simmons smiles, doesn’t protest when Donut pulls him to his feet. “I think I’d like that.”