Work Text:
We’re just not going to talk about how long Church has been awake for. It would be easy to blame it on coursework– finals, projects, homework, any of it– but that’s not it. Church has the maddening ability to fall down the proverbial Rabbit Hole of some side project, code himself into a tizzy, and spend days either not sleeping about it, or getting the bare minimum allotted to keep functioning.
It’s maddening because he becomes even more of a dick than usual, frenzied and on the verge of manic, and mean .
“So,” Tex says, nursing a beer with the bottom resting gently on the swivel chair in the apartment Tucker, Church, and Caboose share, her legs manspreading if that’s a word that you could attribute to her (you can, but don’t do it to her face), boots flat to the floor, “It sounds like he needs a break.”
She’d interrupted Tucker, because if Church gets high-maintenance, Tucker does too, and will ramble on and on and on and on until someone forcibly shuts him the fuck up. She taps a metallic ring against the glass of her beer– whatever seasonal IPA the boys bought and didn’t like that she pilfers from their fridge whenever she comes over– and it sings out a steady beat as she speaks.
“Yeah, well, good luck getting him to take a break . Pretty sure he’ll drop dead before listening to that advice.” Tucker’s sitting on the island counter in their kitchen, his legs swinging below him.
Tex shrugs. “So we’ll just make him relax.”
Tucker groans, and falls backwards on the counter until his back is flat to the surface, blinking up at the kitchen lights. He’s such a dramatic little shit. Usually, it’s annoying as all hell for Tex; right now it’s almost endearing. Almost being the key word here.
“Fat fucking chance of that. He bitched at me this morning because I had the, I don’t know, audacity to tell him that screaming in the living room at six in the morning about some dumb fucking code that he can’t get to work because he’s, I don’t know, stupid , is like so not cool. To get him to relax would require taking the giant stick out of his actual sphincter, and– Hey! I have an idea!”
“Tucker.”
“How about you do your, you know, girlfriend job and rail him six ways to Sunday until he sees God or whatever? Huh? C’mon, Tex.” He lifts his head from the counter and gives Tex the biggest, most watery pleading expression she’s seen since Caboose wanted to go to the frozen yogurt place off campus last week. “ Teeeeeeeeeeeeeeeex. Pleaaaaaaaaaaaassseeeee fuck Church until he doesn’t know his own name, please, please, please.”
“Tucker, you’re going to stop that now.” She uses her stern voice, and jumps up from her chair, prompting Tucker to jump a little. They’re on good terms now , but she still gets a kick out of the fact that he clearly still finds her intimidating. She’d like to keep it that way.
She moves to their entertainment center, and reaches behind the TV, where they keep their stache box. She knows that Tucker hides shit around the entire apartment, and thinks no one knows about it, but everyone does and just politely pretends they didn’t see it. Who knows. Maybe he does have some secret stashes that no one has found yet.
“First of all, how frequently or hard I fuck Church is none of your business. I don’t ask about what you two get up to-” She holds up a finger when Tucker opens his mouth to respond, “- and I don’t want to hear about it –, and besides, that’s not what we’re going to do tonight.”
“Okaaaay,” Tucker sits back up and blinks at her. Looks at the box in her hands, and slowly smiles. “Oh, shit. Okay. I get it now. You nasty bitch. We’re going to green him out.”
“Yep.” She pops her P deliberately hard. “Your task is to have him present and accounted for. I’ll handle the rest. We’re doing a–” She snaps her fingers, and grins. “A kickback. Break his computer if you have to.” She rifles through the box, hums, and puts it back behind the TV, then starts angling her way towards the door, dropping her beer off on the counter. “I’ll be back in two hours.”
Tex opens the door, and turns her head back to Tucker. She squints at him. “No shenanigans.”
“A little shenanigans?”
“A little shenanigans.”
–
Here’s a fun fact about Wash; he’ll partake, but he has the smallest tolerance known to man. Tucker is still rolling the first joint of, hopefully, a series of joints for the night (he's the king of joints, he'll have you know), and Wash has had one bong rip and he’s already laying on the couch, humming to himself. Neither Tex nor Tucker won’t complain, though; Wash can get as high maintenance as Church when they’re in the same room together.
“Move over, dipshit,” is how Church announces his presence to the group at large. He throws Wash’s legs with such vitriolic force that Wash yelps and scrambles to not completely fall off the couch, glaring at Church as he sits down on the newly vacated couch cushion.
It’s a faded red, has more than a few burns in it from joints that have fallen into the arm rests and cushions, it smells weird, there’s cat hair all over the back of it, and it is, somehow, the comfiest couch that anyone has ever sat on. It’s a devious, devilish couch that spurns on naps to the deepest degree.
Church’s hair is a raven’s-nest of inky, unkempt locks, clearly unwashed for days, if not a week. His eyes, deep set and intense beneath his glasses, have insomniac circles beneath them, and makes him look sick . Really, he’s bound to get sick if he doesn’t just fucking relax soon.
“You look like garbage,” Wash says, and plops his legs back up onto the couch, pulling his knees in as he scoots up, pressing his back to the armrest. He hugs his knees with one arm, the other joining it after he reaches out to flick at Church’s raggedy old black hoodie.
“Wow, thanks, Captain fucking obvious, what gave it away?”
Wash lets his head fall back, and his eyes rove around the room until he can lock eyes with Tucker. “Is he gonna be like this the whole time?" He'd never admit to being whiny, but he is. He always is.
Tucker looks up from the joint he's rolling, his tongue dabbing out to lick the seam. "No, he's not, because Tex is gonna shotgun him to bliss town, or I'm gonna be punching him 'till he passes out."
"Hey!" Church bristles, and starts to get up, but Tex, coming back from the kitchen with two whiskey glasses nestled into one of her palms, pushes Church back onto the couch with two confident fingers. Church pouts up at her, but doesn't struggle.
It'd piss Tucker off, how easily Church listens to her, if it wasn't so goddamn convenient sometimes.
"No, he's right, Church." She steps away, and shoots him a look that says stay while she crosses the room to hand Caboose the second glass.
"You are pretty mean right now, Church," Caboose says around his tumbler, wrinkling his nose at the aromatics of the bourbon Tex gave him.
"Yeah, well, I'm working on something that goes a little over your sports scholarship ass, so maybe mind your fucking business."
Wash kicks out one of his feet at Church, and the latter fumbles for his foot and throws it roughly to the side, prompting Wash to yelp and lunge across the couch with his frankly freaky flexibility and tackle Church against the back of the couch. He grabs Church by the jaw and grins at him.
Jesus, they always all forget how stupidly confident Wash can get sometimes.
Church blinks, and tries to slap Wash away, but it's fruitless. No one, especially Church can dissuade Wash when he wants to get a point in.
(It's fucking annoying when they both get so stubborn to the point of brick wall meets brick wall, but Tucker won't lie. It's a little hot.)
"Can you be nice for two seconds?" Wash asks, his fingers digging into Church jaw. His voice is all pleasantries, but the grip he has on Church is a warning. Just try to enjoy this.
Church scoffs, and rolls his eyes, but when Wash digs in just a little harder and lets go, everyone sees the way Church follows his hand, for just a moment, and relaxes his shoulders a fraction more when he scrunches back up in his spot on the couch.
And that's why Wash is invited to the kickback, even if half the time he's a complete buzz kill. They got lucky tonight. He's cool Wash tonight.
Tucker lights up the first joint and sets to rolling another after he takes a couple drags, and the acrid smell of Marijuana fills the apartment air. He passes the joint to Caboose, who takes a drag and passes it to Grif. He bogarts the joint for a couple minutes, but that's fine– he's their dealer, after all, and the Northern Lights they're smoking came directly from him for half the price on the concession that they invite Simmons next time– but eventually passes it off to Tex, leaning up from the beanbag chair that looks fused to him. He paws for Tucker's phone on the coffee table, and gets a playlist going, skipping past the pre-approved, session friendly, highly vetted curation of music that won't piss everyone off, or make anyone sad.
Read: fuck You, Tucker, Grif wants to listen to Bob fucking Marley for the absolute hilarity of the picture it paints them. No one quite gets it, but something about pretending to be classic stoners from a 90s movie makes Grif fall into hysterics everytime.
Caboose is fairly certain that he just likes the music and doesn't want to admit to it.
(Simmons has confirmed this with a nervous laugh, and Donut, who had been present for that conversation, had cooed and awed at how precious that is, and that's why he wasn't invited tonight.)
Tex takes a slow drag, and then steps back to the couch, shooing Wash back to his corner so she can sit between them, pulling and arm over Church and pulling him closer.
Wash slips off the couch to give them more room, and comes to sit next to Tucker on the floor, watching Tucker roll the second joint with the intensity of an Australian shepherd desperately trying to get access to a job. He's not, and won't be, allowed to touch the rolling papers, because he's shit at rolling, but Tucker lets him watch because it kind of makes his stomach hurt in that way he's learned translates to affection for Wash specifically.
"Okay, Leonard," Tex coos from the couch, and all but mimics the way Wash held his face earlier, equally as hard. Church's gaze softens for her immediately, and she smiles at him. "You're going to smoke, and you're going to chill the hell out, and then we're going to bed."
"We?" He asks, voice muffled around the way her fingers are pinching his cheeks.
"Mmhm. If you're nice." She smiles at him, and Church isn't sure he'll ever get over how entranced he is by her. The way one side of her mouth will quirk up, just the one side dimpled, a faint scar running it. The way her stormy, grey eyes seem to hold an entire ocean's of emotions within their depths, and the way they soften for Church only, like the storm's broken, or they're alone in the eye of a hurricane. He can't hear the background music, and it's like everyone else has disappeared while she holds his gaze, and for a fraction of a moment, he lets how truly tired he is show on his face, just for her, and Tex's grip loosens into a gentle hold.
She pulls in a deep drag, and leans forward, pressing her lips to his, and even before she exhales it out to him, he's relaxing beneath her, completely under her spell.
This entire situation is not about the weed, you know. But it sure is a nice excuse.
Even though Tucker was half of the planning committee for this, he's the one who leads the obnoxious, put-upon grossed out groaning, but it falls on deaf ears. He lights up the second joint and passes it to Wash before he takes a hit, which is how you know he probably more than likes you.
Tex exhales into Church's mouth, but doesn't pull away from him when she empties her lungs, deepening their kiss to an almost, but not quite, obscene level. Church melts , and it's like an angry, haunted, malevolent spirit exits the atmosphere of the apartment, and everyone involuntarily sighs in relief.
They care, in their own ways, and when it comes down to it, will take care of each other to the ends of the earth. Strange, the spaces we carve out for each other.
Tex pulls away, pressing her hand lightly to the side of his cheek before she sits back up, rejoining whatever asinine conversation Grif and Caboose are trying to rope Wash into. Something about the differences in certain comic adaptations? A conversation Grif is winning at, Caboose is making into his own game, and Wash is completely losing at. Tex joins in, playing, as usual, the troll trying to completely disrupt whatever arbitrary high horse Grif has, but Church isn't listening.
Church is sinking into the couch, and he lets out a soft, slow breath. Nearly completely out of this world, but not in a bad way, the grass curling pleasantly in his head like a weighted blanket, and the after effects of Tex tingling on his lips. He doesn't know how much time passes when Tucker sidles next to him, the second joint already nearly a roach.
"Better, dude?" He asks, in that nonchalant 'not that I care' way that means he absolutely cares.
"Hm? Oh. Oh, yeah, yeah I'm better," Church says, and Tucker pats him on the shoulder before drifting back to the kitchen to get refills for everyone.
The sesh doesn't start and end with Church, it turns out. That's a good thing. He might be the reason for it's existence, but they're all here of their own accord, and that's made abundantly clear as the music continues and they let the night go on. This, too, is important for Church to see. The world revolves with him, but not around him. The joint passes around and he can participate with his friends and take his own hits and be involved and he slowly loses the angry, suffocating demeanor.
Eventually, Tex pulls him off the couch, laughing raucously when he all but begs for her to pick him up, and they retire to bed. Grif's in the kitchen baking a honey blunt, Caboose has pulled out a Star Wars Lego set he's building, Wash falls asleep on Tucker's lap not unlike a cat nestled in, and Tucker soaks in the passive energy from being surrounded by people he doesn't hate.
The music is a quiet background tempo floating through the apartment, and it's a warm atmosphere as Tex does, in fact, fuck Church's brain out, and he finally passes out in the damning proof that he might, in fact, be okay.