Chapter Text
Donut hummed on his way to the rec room set aside for the Reds and Blues. It was almost time for his daily wine and cheese hour, and this time he’d brought sparkling cider along with the wine so the lieutenants could join in. He had sent word along to the Reds and the lieutenants + Matthews, so he would have to cut more cheese and bread than usual, as well as put an extra leaf in the table. Donut thanked his lucky stars that the door to the rec room had a handle instead of a knob as he opened it with a skillful twist of his hips. He hip-checked the door closed most of the way, not bothering to latch it. On his way to dump his supplies on the couch, however, he saw something that made him stop dead in his tracks.
Wash was curled up in a ball on the couch, sound asleep.
Donut blinked. He blinked again. He walked backwards out the door, leaving it partially closed again, and set his supplies down on the floor as quietly as he could. He then walked back into the rec room and stood in front of the sleeping Freelancer.
Donut sighed. He knew Wash had trouble sleeping. He’d known since the time they’d spent in the Federal Army base—he and Sarge had been woken up by the other man’s nightmares multiple times each night.
Donut pulled his little tablet out of his back pocket and looked up the shared schedule the Reds and Blues used. He looked for the color grey and—yep, Wash had a meeting with Kimball ten minutes ago. He also had another meeting with Carolina in twenty minutes. And training in forty.
Donut looked around for a minute, deciding what to do. With a shrug, he sent a message to his team and to the lieutenants: “Donut’s Daily Wine and Cheese Hour Cancelled”, before adding another: “Meet me in Kimball’s meeting room in ten minutes”, and sent it to Tucker and Caboose as well. He grabbed a blanket from the rocking chair and carefully draped it over Wash’s hunched form, smiling when the Freelancer didn’t so much as twitch. He then pulled a piece of paper and marker out of Caboose’s crafts section of their bookshelf and wrote “DO NOT ENTER WITHOUT DONUT’S PERMISSION, OR WINE, CHEESE, AND COOKIES WILL BE WITHELD”. With a satisfied nod, he taped it to the door. He closed the door again, quietly gathered his supplies in his arms, and booked it to his room. He had a plan.
Five minutes later, Donut skidded to a halt outside of Kimball’s meeting room. “Agent Washington, where in the world have you been—” Kimball yelled as the door opened, “—oh, Donut. Sorry about that. Have you seen Wash?” Donut closed the door behind him and sat down across from her. “He was supposed to meet with me fifteen minutes ago.”
Donut nodded slowly. “About that...” he trailed off dramatically.
Kimball’s brow creased. “Is he alright?” she asked.
Donut shrugged. “I found him sound asleep in the rec room,” he said, “and you and I both know Wash doesn’t fall asleep just anywhere.” Kimball blinked slowly at him, the dots not connecting. “He’s exhausted. I think he’s overworked. He’d never just fall asleep when he had a meeting planned!”
Kimball slumped in her chair for a moment before straightening. “Let me see what his schedule is like.” When she pulled up the schedule on her own screen, Donut moved to sit next to her. She changed the view of the schedule to only show Wash’s activities and they both gasped. Donut stared at the schedule open-mouthed for a solid thirty seconds before recovering.
“When does he eat?!” Donut shrieked, “When does he sleep? When does he sit down for thirty seconds—goodness!”
Kimball looked visibly shaken. “I had no idea he’d filled up his schedule so thoroughly,” she said slowly, “I’m going to change this. He can’t keep doing this. He goes on three different runs in the morning so that he can run with three different groups!”
Donut pointed to a break in the activities, “His lunch break is five minutes long. Five minutes! That’s how long it takes to get through the cafeteria lunch line!”
Kimball squeezed the bridge of her nose. “Okay, okay. We need to change this, but we can’t just leave people hanging. We have to get more people in on this so that they’re not lost and depending on him when he isn’t there.”
Donut nodded. “It’s a good thing I sent a message for all of the Reds and Blues—plus the Lieutenants!—to join us in...” Donut looked at the time on Kimball’s screen, “...um, right now!”
Kimball looked at him for a moment like she didn’t believe him, before a knock at the door startled her. She looked between Donut and the door a few times before she shrugged. “I’m not even mad,” she mumbled as she got up and opened the door.
A cacophony of noise assaulted them.
“Is Donut alright?” Simmons demanded.
“He sent the message—” Palomo.
“Donut never cancels his wine and cheese hour!” Sarge.
“He threatened to take away our snacks!” Grif.
“Quiet!” Kimball yelled, effectively silencing the group. “Donut is fine. We need to talk to you. Now. Get in here.” The group dissolved into relieved mumbles upon seeing the pink soldier, and sat around the table. After the quiet shuffling settled down, Kimball turned on the big screen in the front of the room. “Donut brought something to my attention,” she announced.
Grif put his face in his hands. “Oh, here we go.”
Kimball ignored him. “Right now, I’m supposed to be meeting with Agent Washington. He failed to arrive.” That got everyone’s attention, Donut noted in satisfaction.
Simmons looked around. “Wh-where is he?”
Donut crossed his arms. “Sound asleep on the couch of the rec room,” he said, “He didn’t wake up when I opened the door, or when I put a blanket on him.”
Grif's eyes widened comically. "Ohh, so that's why you left that note on the door!"
Sarge mirrored Donut's position. “Agent Wash doesn’t fall asleep just anywhere,” he noted. Donut shook his head.
Kimball pulled up the main schedule on the big screen. “We took a look at Wash’s individual schedule,” she said as she pulled it up, “And found this.”
Simmons gasped. Grif choked on his own spit—or the candy Donut had given him earlier—and sputtered, “What the actual fuck?!” It took a little longer for it to sink in for everyone else, but Donut heard a few more gasps and muttered exclamations. Tucker looked positively horrified.
“We need to clear this as much as possible,” Kimball continued, “At least in the morning and night. He needs to get decent sleep. I know we all need his expertise, but we can’t keep doing this. We’re running him into the ground.”
Tucker raised his hand. “Okay, for one thing, one run in the morning is hell on earth. Three?! We need to either get rid of those or cycle them on different days. Give him at least one free day to run by himself.” Kimball nodded and deleted two of the runs each morning, leaving one day with an activity that just said “Morning run: do not disturb”.
Simmons cleared his throat. “Wash and I work on decrypting the orders and messages we find and overhear just before lunch every other day. It cuts into lunch a little. He taught me how to do it; if you were to assign someone else to help me out, I could manage without him.” Kimball nodded and deleted the activity for every day except Wednesday, leaving a small slice of time for “Check on Simmons and Jensen—decoding and decrypting”.
Sarge grunted. “He has two separate blocks for training us Reds and training the Blues.” The man paused, eyeing Tucker and Caboose suspiciously, before continuing, “Now I don’t like training with the dirty blues, but I’ll make an exception for Agent Sleepyhead.” Kimball condensed the two activities into one.
Palomo raised his hand, mirroring Tucker. “Um, he trains with each of our squads individually. I think, at this point, the Captains could manage without him every day? Like—he could work with a different squad every day. That way the Captains can work on training us, too. ‘Cause, I mean, he works with all of us anyways. We train with the Feds all the time now. He does that, too. Every. Day.” Kimball sighed. She continued making adjustments here and there, until Wash had time to eat and sleep like a normal human being.
“There’s only one problem,” She reminded them after the group cheered their success. “We have to convince Wash to accept this.”
The room went quiet.
Donut grinned. “Don’t you worry about that,” He said cheerily, “I think I know just what to do!”