I have broken the spell of the power rangers and produced a drabble in another fandom. Yay, me. This one is in honor of all college roommates everywhere. Nothing compares with the torture that is a one-room double.
Title: Roomies
Author: Ivy
Synopsis: Bridger put Lucas and Piccolo in a room together? Sounds like a recipe for disaster to me. Second season
Disclaimers: Definitely not my characters.
Piccolo pulled the pillow over his head. This worked. Kinda. At least he was in darkness, but now his nostrils were oppressed by musty cotton and suffocating warmth. He was drifting towards sleep, just in that phase where the senses are most acute. When you hear the faucet dripping, and you know it’s no big deal but it’s driving you nuts and it’s almost a matter of principle that you should be able to tough this out. For Tony, it wasn’t a drip - God knows there were enough of those on the seaQuest. It was a light. A brilliant desk lamp, that, even though it was pointed away, lit up the tiny room like a halogen streetlamp.
“Lucas! Turn it off!” Piccolo grunted. Or tried to. He didn’t have the energy to make his lips move, and through the pillow it sounded like a vaguely annoyed groan.
No response.
Piccolo tossed off the pillow and rolled on his bunk to face the offending desk lamp. Even with his eyes shut, it was too bright. He draped his arm over his face and tried again. “Turn it off!” God, didn’t the kid ever sleep?
“You say something?” Lucas said with mild interest.
Piccolo groped clumsily for his watch on the bureau above his head. “It’s two in the morning, kid. I need my beauty sleep.”
“I’m not sure I can help with that.” Lucas cracked, still typing.
“Ha. Ha. Go to bed for christ’s sake.” Tony was not amused.
“No can do. Gotta finish this code. How’s this?”
In the spirit of good citizenship, Lucas craned the neck of the desk lamp so the shade was almost brushing the desk. Now the only light it provided bounced of the metal of the desk. Better. But still annoying. Piccolo grunted, already half asleep again.
He was just drifting into visions of dancing thighs, when Lucas crossed the line. Crinkle, crinkle. The mashing of cellophane, in just the way that meant Lucas was trying to be quiet, but ended up just prolonging the agony. God damn stupid noisy annoying spoiled inconsiderate stuck up little snot!
Tony heaved himself out of bed, bare feet thudding onto cold metal grating, brushed past Lucas to turn off the light and tried to get back under the covers with as little loss of body heat as possible.
“Hey!” Lucas cried peevishly, and turned the light back on.
“What the hell are you workin’ on, and it better be top priority, directly from Bridger.” Tony was sliding out of bed again.
“It’s a new GUI for this online RPG that - hey! What are you doing?”
Piccolo attempted to wrest the computer monitor off of Lucas’ desk. “I’m throwing this in the moon pool,” he said flatly.
“Fine,” Lucas threw up his hands. “You win. I’ll go to bed.” He said it with all the vehemence of a six-year-old asking to stay up late.
“Good.” Piccolo flicked off the light and started his fall into bed from halfway across the room, hoping gravity would do the work for him.
Lucas hopped up onto his bunk, the springs above Tony’s head squeaking on impact. And then squeaking some more. Tony dug his face into the bed. Pick a side and stick to it! More squeaking. A sigh. More squeaking. This had to stop.
Piccolo kicked as hard as he could into the bottom of Lucas’ mattress. He heard the “oof!” with satisfaction, and smiled smugly. He got a glimpse of hair flopping over the side of the bedrail in the glow of the computer monitor as it cycled off, heard a “whiff…,” then tasted cotton as the corner of Lucas’ pillow hit his open mouth. He grabbed for it, but the more alert Lucas had it back on the upper bunk before his hands could close.
“Truce?” Tony asked tiredly, with no energy left to fight. But in the morning, oh in the morning, Lucas would pay.
“Aye, aye captain,” Lucas mocked.
“’N’ don’t you forget it,” Tony mumbled rolling over and falling finally, blissfully, asleep.
REad on AO3.