Fuck's sake, you're thinking, laying in bed, wide awake and somehow still feeling like you have done all day - ready to fall asleep at the first opportunity. And now it's here, the room in darkness aside from the moonlight through the open blinds just the way you like it, and yet your exhausted body refuses to shut off. Typical.
If it weren't for how damn quickly your lips got cracked and dry, you'd be breathing through your mouth. Thankfully, you're not forced to do so quite yet - although the way your stuffy nose is sounding at every inhale, you might be soon, and that would be the equivalent of admitting defeat. So far, you'd been ignoring your earache, headache, every ache you had; you'd put aside how your eyes hurt and your legs and arms were tired from more than just training exercises with the rookies.
Now, though, you couldn't quite dismiss it, and it was catching up to you. Damn fast. Tossing and turning in the too-warm blankets (despite it being 2°C in the barracks, due to the inconveniently-timed broken heating), you let out a frustrated sigh, pulling on your comfy military socks and a hoodie and padding out from your tiny room, shoulders hunched against the chill.
Trodding through the corridors, wishing you'd bothered to put on shoes, you soon found yourself in the mess hall, quiet and dark and empty. You hated how eerie it was at night, but did appreciate the little coffee and tea machines at the sides, however cheap they tasted. Grabbing a chipped mug and pressing the breakfast tea option, you let your tired head fall to your chest, closing your eyes and swaying a little where you stand.
As the tea finishes making itself, you pick up the mug, grateful for its warmth, and sit yourself down at a nearby table, blowing your nose with a scratchy napkin but glad it was there anyway. More mulling over the tea than drinking it, you lay your head down, foggy mind drifting from thought to thought and not noticing the other man enter the mess hall.
A gentle tap on the shoulder jolts you upright, and you realise how you're sitting in almost complete darkness as your eyes adjust to make out the figure of Roach standing in front of you. He's wearing a set of matching pyjamas - one of those soft, chequered ones with a button-up shirt and drawstring trousers tied in a floppy bow - and fluffy socks, and is missing his usual helmet, goggles and gloves. Which you suppose is expected seeing as it's probably early hours of the morning. That being said, he's got on a smaller version of his normal mask, covering only the bottom half of his face.
"Are you okay?" he asks, tapping his fingers to his chest then doing a double thumbs-up to sign it. You smile tiredly, trying to be polite and say you're fine but your voice is raspy and painful when you speak. Roach tilts his head slightly at you, then points at the tea and signs for you to drink it. Too ill to argue, you do as he says and watch as he picks up your now-empty mug, putting it to the side apparently for someone else to clean up, then holding his hand out expectantly.
"What're'y' doing?" you mumble, taking his hand and entwining your fingers as you stand up, leaning into his body almost instinctively. He tries to sign something, but with only one hand free and your groggy brain, the message doesn't really get across. You follow him blindly anyway, not really caring so long as you can nab his warmth for as long as possible.
He leads you along the corridors of the barracks to a room that definitely isn't your own, going by the completely different layout and the fact that there's a knocked out Lieutenant in one of the bunks. You don't bother to question it when you're bundled into the bed opposite and followed by Roach, who wraps the seemingly infinite blankets around the both of you and presses a firm kiss to your forehead through his mask, despite the fact you're not at all dating or even close to this being normal.
He doesn't give you time to argue (not that you have the brain power to anyway), instead pushing you to lie down and quickly cuddling into your side, resting his head on your shoulder and tracing absent-minded patterns into your chest. You curl your arms around him, letting your mind catch up.
"Did you just kidnap me to snuggle with?" you process after a moment, glancing down to see him nod. "You share a room with Ghost." Another nod. "And you couldn't've gone the three metres over to his bed?" Roach hesitates; thinks. Then shakes his head stubbornly, legs tangling with yours.
Maybe that scratchy napkin was just brilliant, but you're certainly not feeling as ill and uncomfortable as before when you finally drift off to sleep, the Sergeant in your arms as your own little personal weighted warming blanket.
