I've admittedly been feeling really miserable for the past couple weeks for no good reason at all, but I'm starting to feel better so I now I can finally actually write and I decided I needed to write fluff, space fluff. This is what happens when inspiration from
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starandrea gets mixed up with inspiration from
kikos_ai. No, I have not created Space SWAT. Since this is me, this is a completely innocent, G rated, gen fic where a lot of people just happen to end up in the same bed.
Title: Grandma's Feather Bed
Characters: The Space Team
Rating: G
Summary: Nothing, absolutely nothing is going to get Andros out of bed.
( Grandma's Feather Bed ) Something tugged on the edge of Andros’ perception bringing his mind slowly from unconsciousness, but he fought against it. Letting out a low moan, he curled up tightly into a ball and dug his face deeper into his pillow. He had absolutely no intention of waking up.
But whatever it was wouldn’t leave. A flicker of his eyelids revealed it to be still dark. Not that that mattered. He was planning to sleep through the night and as far past sunrise as possible. After everything he’d been through over the past months, he deserved to sleep for a week at least. The fighting was over. It was time to rest.
Unfortunately, he was already awake enough to feel the coldness of the air surrounding him. He pulled at his blanket only to receive an answering pull from the other side of the bed. Cursing mentally, he recalled he’d stupidly volunteered to share a bed with Zhane.
They’d arrived at Zhane’s grandparents’ abandoned farm house incredibly late last night, soaking wet from a downpour he was certain would soon turn to snow and completely exhausted. He obviously hadn’t been thinking coherently when they’d made the sleeping arrangements. The soft snoring that filled the room revealed that the silver ranger hadn’t even been woken up during their brief fight over covers. Andros resisted the urge to kick him.
Groaning again, he stretched his deadened limbs and turned over so he lay on his back. It took several minutes laying there before he realized that there was someone else besides him and his best friend in the room. Even then, his military training completely failed him as he raised himself on his elbows and spent several more minutes simply blinking at the vague silhouette in the doorway before his latent psi powers kicked in and informed him who it was.
“Karone?”
“I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to wake you.”
“’s alright,” Andros mumbled rubbing his eyes. “What’s wrong?”
After several minutes without receiving a response, the red ranger wordlessly patted the bed beside him. Karone hesitated a moment, but eventually crawled between Andros and Zhane and slipped the covers over her purple pyjamas. Unaware of what was going on, Zhane merely grumbled something in his sleep and resumed snoring.
Andros gladly let his heavy head hit the pillow once more and could already feel himself fading away again as his eyelids slowly closed. Forcing them back open, he found Karone staring intently at him.
“Nightmare?” he murmured.
“Yeah.”
“Bad?”
“Yeah.”
There was a pause.
“I killed you,” Karone whispered.
Andros tried to come up with something both incredibly encouraging and comforting to say. Instead all his sleepy brain could manage was, “Well, I’m not dead, am I?”
Karone reached over, laid a hand on his arm and squeezed tightly. “No, you’re not.” They smiled at each other.
It wasn’t until he was shaken awake that Andros realized he’d slipped into sleep again. A slight increase in light suggested it was beginning to approach dawn. It was also enough light for him to make out Ashley’s expression as she frowned down at him.
“Andros, there’s something wrong with the heating.”
“Mhmm.”
“Could you please fix it?”
“In the morning,” Andros grumbled.
“But the attic’s freezing.”
The last comment came from the other side of the bed. Andros lifted his head up just enough to register the colour pink before he let it fall down again. “Ask Zhane,” he told the pink ranger.
“He’s even harder to wake than you are,” whined Cassie. “Can’t you fix it now, please?”
“Morning,” Andros insisted before burrowing himself into his pillow once more.
Ashley let out an exasperated sigh and said, “Fine then.” She lifted up the blanket and gave Andros a push. “Move over.” Andros grumbled at the rough treatment and the sudden exposure to cold air, but shifted over until he was next to his sister. Karone blinked sleepily at him then looked over at Ashley who was just making herself comfortable on his other side.
“Hey, Ash.”
“Hey, Karone.”
Then the former sorceress of evil snuggled up to her brother and went back to sleep.
On the other side of the bed, Cassie made herself room by giving Zhane a big shove. It was enough to finally wake the silver ranger. He suddenly sat up and looked dazedly from side to side. “Did I miss something?”
“No.”
“Nope.”
“Nuh-uh.”
“Go back to sleep, Zhane.”
“Ok.” He settled himself back down between Cassie and Karone and complied.
Letting out a sigh, Andros relaxed and drifted back to sleep with the sweet smell of Ashley’s shampoo.
“Andros, do you have any… Hey! How come you guys all get a nice feather bed and I have to sleep on the floor.”
A series of grumbles and groans came from the bed. Andros put an arm across his face to block the orange light that was now peeking through the widow indicating the sun had finally risen.
Cassie let out a yawn and addressed the intruder. “It’s not our fault you suck at Rock, Paper, Scissors.”
Carlos scowled at her. “TJ cheats.”
“Do not,” countered the blue ranger as he entered rubbing his back. “I don’t think that’s even possible. Besides I doubt the floor was any less comfortable than the couch.”
Ashley raised her head. “What are you two doing up so early? It’s barely sunrise.”
“The light woke us up,” replied Carlos yawning. “That and the substandard sleeping arrangements. We thought we’d make everyone pancakes.”
“Yeah,” TJ put in. “Only we don’t have any eggs or milk and the only flour we could find was bright yellow. At least, I think it was flour.”
“That’s the ground tarprod root,” explained Zhane without opening his eyes. “Use the orange.”
Eyebrows raised, Carlos and TJ exchanged looks. “Maybe we could use a little help with the Karovian ingredients. Andros, could you…?”
“No food. Sleep.”
“But…”
“Sleep,” Andros repeated his voice slightly muffled by his pillow.
Carlos yawned again. “Well, I’m not going to argue with that.” Moving over to the yellow ranger’s side, he said, “Shove up, Ash.”
“Mmmm,” she mumbled already half asleep.
There was a general shifting of bodies as Carlos got in and everyone snuggled closer together.
“Are you guys sure?” asked TJ staring at the tangle of bodies. “I mean we’re all going to be hungry soon and there’s snow outside. We could go out and…”
“No snow. Sleep!” commanded the grumpy red ranger.
Cassie grinned at TJ. “You’re not going disobey a direct order are you?” She lifted the covers on her side of the bed. “Get in.”
Rolling his eyes, TJ submitted climbing in and wrapping his arms around Cassie.
There was a last shifting of bodies as everyone settled down.
‘Finally,’ thought Andros. With a contented smile, he fell asleep listening to the soft sounds of his friends breathing.
It was nine feet tall and six feet wide
soft as a downy chick
It was made from the feathers of forty eleven geese
took a whole bolt of cloth for the tick
It'd hold eight kids 'n' four hound dogs
and a piggy we stole from the shed
We didn't get much sleep but we had a lot of fun
on Grandma's feather bed
~John Denver (Jim Connor)
