Red vs Blue One-Shots shall be found here! So let's get 'um started. :3

Someone asked nicely for a "Docington" fic on Tumblr on an open post in the tracked tags. And I know the pain of not being able to find anything new for your favorite rare-pair.

The Blue Base Couch

Characters: Washington & Frank "Doc" DuFresne

Rating: G/K+

Summary: The Blues have a new couch, which inevitably attracts company.

Wash sunk into the worn cushion of the couch they'd hijacked from a nearby base. While their little home in Blood Gulch suited most of their needs, supplies weren't unlimited and raids on nearby bases were inevitable. It was stealing, but what was the worse that could happen? What's a count of larceny on top of their other list of charges? This particular run had been food-focused, and they had gathered quite the haul, but then Caboose saw the couch. He loved that couch. He had to have the couch. Wash told the kid offhand that if he wanted it, he'd have to carry it.

Wash had forgotten the kid was strong as an ox, and over Caboose's Regulation Blue shoulder it went.

The couch was ugly. The print was a weird red, black, and yellow plaid pattern with white lace along the bottom. It looked like something dragged out his grandmother's apartment. But, it fit all three of them easily with wide square cushions. The seats were comfortable, and it fit in the space between a weapon's rack and their kitchenette neatly. They'd moved the television across from it, against the other wall and it fit in better than Wash would have imagined. Made their base look sort of homey, really.

The end point, Wash thought to himself, was that their home was now plus-one couch. Which led to his current predicament:

"Why are you here again?" Wash asked, tracing the pattern on the couch arm with his index and middle fingers. There was a full cushion seat between him and his latest companion, but Wash still felt tense. "Weren't you and Donut roomies or something in Valhalla?"

"He moved back in with the Reds." Doc answered, twisting his fingers together in his lap. Wash scratched his stomach through his shirt as Doc stopped to adjust his glasses. Both of their armor sets sat in the corner, neatly stacked. "Took me about a week to realize where he went."

"And you came to Blue base, because?" Wash asked, genuinely curious. He and Doc had left on decent terms, that never seemed to mean much with Wash's associates. Wash tapped the couch arm.

Doc had arrived this morning in full armor and a suitcase in his hand. Tucker had told the medic to get lost, but Caboose smacked him hard enough to leave a teal-solider shaped dent in the wall. Wash couldn't place a motive, but Caboose let Doc in all the same. Wash would have questioned it, but he hadn't had his coffee yet and his soap was on. It was when Doc sat next to him on the couch, already changed into his civvies, that Wash started to feel awkward. They really hadn't a chance to talk since they killed the Meta, and it was just—weird.

Wash coughed into his hand, and scratched the back of his cropped hair. " Wouldn't it make more sense to move in with Donut?"

"I did." Doc averted his eyes to the side. He folded his hands in his lap, and sighed. "Or, rather, I tried."

"Oh," Wash said, feeling dumb. If they'd kept him at Red Base he'd be there. Wash was really letting his training leave him. Even an ex-Freelancer should be better than that! Wash mumbled, "That idiot Grif, or Sarge kick you out?"

"No," Doc said evenly. His body was very still, and Wash's training did, however, pick up on how tightly controlled his voice was. "Donut."

"Oh," Wash repeated. Well that's something I'm not touching with a ten foot pole, he thought to himself.

Doc picked up the remote and changed the channel as the credits started rolling on the television screen. He flipped through the channels until he found an infomercial for scented candles, of all things. The television filled the silence with a perky show host, and Wash rubbed his hands on the top of his thighs wondering where the heck Caboose and Tucker had gone. He couldn't deal with this tension.

Wash blurted, "Guess Blue Base is better than camping out, huh?"

"Yes, caves are okay, but this is better. I spent a quite a few weeks living in one for a while, but a base floor is better. Less water and bats," Doc said absently. As if the words that had come out of his mouth were perfectly normal. Wash stared, while Doc leaned toward the television. "Oh, I wonder if that candle comes in lavender aromatherapy…"

"You used to live in a cave?" Wash asked, face scrunched in confusion.

"Yes. In the old Blood Gulch. I was assigned to Blue Base, but they sent me to Red Base saying I was needed over there more. It was great at first, but I screwed up with Grif, and so they sent me back to Blue Base." Doc leaned over the side of the couch and looked around. He lifted a gun on the shelf with his index finger and thumb and looked under it. Wash almost rolled his eyes, and reached over to the kitchenette counter. He picked up the stick-it note pad and a pencil before tossing it at Doc. He said his thanks, and immediately began to copy down down order numbers—not that they'd deliver. Doc continued, "Or tried. Blue Base wouldn't take me back, and there was no pick-up team, so I got stuck living in a cave."

Wash didn't have a response to that.

"It wasn't so bad. Just after I settled in, I met O'Malley, so it's not like I was alone. He was angry a lot, but he was okay after you got used to him." Doc smiled. "And then Lopez and that Bomb Andy were around, and they were pretty mean, but I think they meant well? I'm not sure sometimes. But they had their pleasant moments, too."

"I see," Wash said. "So what happened to them?"

"I'm pretty sure they're all dead," Doc said, writing down a second number. "They all left me, either way, and then I spent a lot of time at Blue Base babysitting Tucker's kid."

"Junior, right." Wash nodded to himself, still slightly unnerved by Tucker's alien baby. The kid was in his own corner of the base, but still. Tucker a dad? No way. "Bet he was a handful."

"No, no he was fine." Doc looked up. "After that we all split up, and well, I guess I met you."

Wash snorted to himself, rubbing a hand over his face. "Met. Yeah, that's one way to put it."

Doc's hand stopped on the pad mid sentence, and he looked contemplative. Wash bit his lip, wondering if this is went all that pent-up anger from kidnapping Doc, and all that hell he put him through with the Meta would come out and the guilt. Wash braced and—

The medic started laughing.

Wash scooted up in his seat, the plaid fabric stretching. "What? What's funny now?"

"Your face. You look like I'm going to attack you or something." Doc looked over, and grinned. "Don't you remember I'm a pacifist?"

"Yeah, but even pacifists get mad when you kidnap people and have a scary Meta drag them around a desert embedded in a wall."

"And yet you were still far better company than O'Malley ever was," Doc said, his voice tight. "He was really evil. Always wanting to hurt people, and—I shouldn't talk that way. I'm sorry."

"Nah, it's okay." Wash settled back into his seat. The infomercial droned on as each candle was showed off with a list of 'calming ingredients.' "O'Malley was worse than I was?"

"You were pretty nice all considered. I think we got along quite well there near the end of it." Doc scratched through the number he hadn't been able to finish before the screen flipped to the next item. He pushed his glasses up on his face. "But I still maintain there was no Stockholm Syndrome involved."

"Yup, and that's why you saved me from the cliff, and helped fix the wounds, and are here on the couch after all that horrible stuff I did to you." Wash snorted. "No clinging to your attacker here."

"I'd like to think I'd do those things for any friend."

Wash's throat tightened. Wash was Caboose's New Church. He was Tucker's annoyance. He was the Red Team's new Rival leader. But that. Wash forced himself to swallow. "Are we—"

"Yes," Doc said, not looking his direction. His hands were shaking, and Wash looked at his own. He clenched his fists. That word probably meant something to their medic, too. Wash sucked in a breath when Doc confirmed, for the both of them: "Definitely yes."

Wash licked his lips, and tilted his head. He looked over at the other man with his wild brown hair, and wire-framed glasses. Bright eyes trying very hard to stay on the screen, definitely not sneaking peaks in the ex-Freelancer's direction. Wash slumped down in the couch seat, stretching his legs out and crossing his ankles.

"So why were you talking about sleeping on the base floor?" Wash asked, a smile tugging on the edge of his lip.

"Excuse me?" Doc asked. "I just assumed that's where you'd have room. I'm not going to kick someone out of their bedroom just to let me stay. That'd be rude and—"

"Hey," Wash interrupted. "Last I checked, friends crash on the couch."

"Oh," Doc said, eyes wide. He looked down at his seat on the ugly plaid pattern, and across the middle cushion to Wash. He opened his mouth once, closed it. And smiled. "I am already pretty comfortable right here."

"Then it's settled," Wash said. He rubbed under his nose with his index finger. "You'll stay on the couch."

"Thank you," Doc said. He relaxed an inch, a tension releasing that Wash hadn't even noticed had been there. Doc had worn it like a second skin, and he looked better without it. Less lines on his face, and body limp. Wash grinned. It was a good thing.

Wash would have to remember to do something good for Caboose later. The couch was a good idea.