This is just a little 4 & 5 oneshot that I wrote because I couldn’t sleep.
For the third night in a row, Four woke up to a rustling sound coming from the air vents above his room. The first night, Four assumed it was just the ship making noises and went back to sleep. The second night, Four thought it was odd, but a quick sweep of the ship turned up nothing so he resigned to go back to sleep. The third night, Four was ready. The minute he heard the noise, he was awake and, sword in hand, he quietly left his room. The noise stopped when he opened and closed his door, but he waited just outside his room until he heard the noise start again, trailing along the air vent above him. The more he listened, the more the rustling sounded like crawling and Four followed it all the way to the mess hall. Suspecting an intruder, Four waited outside the doorway.
After a moment, Four heard the grate being pulled off of the vent in the mess hall. Four rounded the corner, raising his sword, prepared to attack the intruder if necessary. Four froze, sword still at the ready, when he saw who the intruder was.
“Jeez, Four! Hasn’t anyone told you it’s rude to sneak up on people? I should buy you a bell next time we stop to refuel,” Five said, standing up, completely unfazed by the fact that she almost came face to face with a very sharp sword.
“I’m not the one crawling through the air ducts at 3 in the morning,” Four replied as he sheathed his sword and laid it down on a nearby table.
“Touché. Well, I’m sorry for waking you. You can go back to sleep in peace now,” Five said as she walked past him and sat down at the table, starting to pull objects out of the bag slung over her shoulder.
“You’re not going to get rid of me that easily. Why are you awake and crawling through the air ducts?” Four asked, crossing his arms over his chest and giving her his best interrogating father look.
“I can’t sleep and when I can’t sleep I usually come here to work on my projects,” Five easily replied.
“You do realize that, as a part of this crew, you can just walk down the hallway and you don’t have to sneak around like some kind of stowaway,” Four pointed out.
“Tell that to the Android. She’s decided that I don’t sleep regularly enough so she started locking my door at night to keep me from wandering around the ship when I should be sleeping,” Five replied with an eye roll and only a bit of sass.
Four chuckled at the thought of the Android trying to parent Five. “We’ll talk to the Android about that tomorrow. For now, how about you tell me about this project you’re working on.”
With that, Five’s whole face lit up and she launched into an hour long explanation of the new gadget that she was working on that would decrease their energy usage by half without affecting their day to day lifestyle.
“Is there anything I can do to help?” Four asked, feeling the need to do something while he stayed up with her to make sure she didn’t blow up the spaceship.
“Yeah, you can go get those cookies I know you have squirreled away where Three can’t find them,” Five said with a smirk.
Four knew better than to deny the existence of the cookies, but he did make Five close her eyes while he retrieved some from his secret hiding place. He returned to his seat across from Five and placed a package of cookies between them on the table.
“So, what does that piece do?” Four asked, deciding to stay up with her and make sure she made it back to her room before falling asleep.
Five smiled at him as she pulled out a cookie and started talking about circuit boards and energy manipulation. Four didn’t understand half of the words coming out of her mouth, but he was perfectly happy to sit there and listen to her as she moved on to talk about the exact specifications of her gadget and the other components she would have to buy at the next refueling station.
By the time Four took the last cookie out of the package, Five could barely keep her eyes open and every sentence she said was punctuated by a yawn.
Four nudged her leg with his foot and nodded towards their rooms. “Come on, time for bed.”
Five started putting her tools back in her bag and looked up at Four, “Thanks for listening to me and keeping me company tonight.”