#deimos and sanford are there too | Explore Tumblr posts and blogs

ya-killin-me-smalls · 1 month ago

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dumb little sanmos ficlet I finished last night

"You're falling asleep."

"Mm? No 'm not."

"I saw your eyes close."

"I was just resting them, man."

"You're driving."

Right. Yes. Very true. But the desert seems to stretch endlessly into pitch-darkness, not a sign of life in sight outside of the car. As boring as it is eerie. Deimos could probably sleep the whole way and as long as he kept his hand still they'd stay going straight just fine.

"Deimos."

His head jerks up. Definitely nodding off that time. "I'm up," he says anyways, then yelps and pulls to the side of his seat when Sanford pinches his side. Hard. "Dude—!"

"No sleeping!" Sanford isn't even looking at him, typing away on his phone, but still reaches a hand over to block Deimos from resting his forehead against the wheel out of frustration. "Look, there's a motel a couple miles after this next exit. We'll spend the night there and head out first thing in the morning."

On any other night, he'd protest. Nothing makes his skin crawl more than a sleazy motel room in the middle of nowhere. With their dingy carpets and their suspicious dark stains and their weird smells and creepy employees. And that's not even mentioning that one time he woke up to a roach crawling across his face. Not his manliest scream.

But still, a used mattress does sound more comfortable than a car accident right about now. He takes the exit.

—————

The lights in this place make him look like he has jaundice.

The guy at the counter also has jaundice.

"You boys just passing through?" he asks, typing almost annoyingly slow on the keyboard in front of him. No one under fifty should type that slow.

"Something like that," Sanford replies, setting a wad of cash on the counter.

The man quirks a brow at him, then at Deimos, and then the other brow rises to join the first. "Uh-huh… Well, lucky for you, we've still got a room available for the night." Sanford slides the cash over, and then the man hands him the key. "Try to keep it down, yeah?"

—————

There isn't any of the normal motel must smell, but the carpet is twice as dingy. More importantly though…

"One bed?"

"One bed."

Deimos whistles lowly. "Just our luck, huh?"

Sanford grunts in the affirmative, dropping his duffle bag by the door. The room is chilly, the heat of the day long gone and the heater under the windowsill either not on or broken entirely. "We've shared the truck bed before. I'd consider this an upgrade."

"Yeah, but that was a truck bed. This is a bed bed."

"And?"

He… doesn't have a follow-up to that point. Not one that'll make any sense, at least. Deimos sets his own bag down. "Think they got hot water?"

"Not even a little bit."

"Guess I'm staying bloody then."

That gets him side-eye from Sanford even with the shades on, the way his brow raises just a little bit and his lips pull into a thin line conveying the look just fine. "You're sleeping on the floor then."

"Aw, c'mon, it ain't even that much blood."

"The entire lower half of your face is red."

Deimos sags, then pouts, and when Sanford only holds his stare he sighs and shuffles off toward the bathroom.

The water isn't warm. It isn't necessarily cold either, a small win, but it definitely isn't warm. Coupled with the cold air in the room though, it might as well be. He gets dressed quickly, cargo pants and a t-shirt to save himself extra steps in the morning, Sanford polite enough not to look too much until he has his pants on. An odd little courtesy considering the situations they've found themselves in before. Sanford has given him mouth-to-mouth more than once and Deimos has had to help hold Sanford's guts in his abdomen on their way to evac. Exposed skin is the least that they've seen of each other.

That fact doesn't change his own hangups about sharing a bed. It's one thing to fight and bleed together, one thing to cram themselves into tight spaces for hours on end to avoid being detected, one thing to spend days at a time together with nothing but the words between them to pass the time. It's an entirely other thing to share each other's warmth for the sake of comfort. The floor is right there. They could sleep in shifts. It's wholly unnecessary to share the bed but Sanford is already halfway under the covers and patting the other side, beckoning Deimos over as he towels off his hair.

"You tell Doc we're gonna be late?" he asks as he slots himself in at the edge.

"Yep. Told him you were passing out like a princess at the wheel." There's no malice in Sanford's voice, light and teasing. The room feels a lot warmer all of a sudden.

"Hilarious." Deimos tosses the towel to the floor, a yawn derailing whatever other insults he'd been planning to throw at Sanford. "Just you watch, we're gonna go home with head lice."

"Better than letting you wrap us around a tree."

"Hey, I happen to be a great sleep-driver."

"There aren't even any trees out here, but you'd find one."

"Nuh-uh."

"Nine dead, twenty-three injured."

It gets a laugh out of Deimos, easing the tension in his shoulders and letting exhaustion drag him down to lay on his crappy pillow.

Scratch that. This is a great pillow. He's stealing this.

He hears Sanford turning off the bedside lamp as his eyes fall shut, sleep eager to take him for the night. Pulling an all-nighter the day before wasn't his greatest decision, far from his worst, but the effects of it are catching up to him quickly despite how cold he is now that he's stopped moving. And he's right on the cusp of sleep, ready to let the darkness pull him in, when Sanford grabs him with an arm around the waist and drags him over to the other side of the mattress. Deimos jolts and yelps, only a little bit undignified, trying to pull back but Sanford snakes both arms around him and Deimos has lost the fight before it's even started.

"Hold still, ya weirdo," Sanford grumbles, pulling the sheets up higher and hooking a leg over Deimos's.

"You could'a just said you wanted to snuggle, sheesh."

"Don't make it weird, D. You're the one that's over there shivering."

"Oh, I'm making it weird!"

"You are! I'm just trying to warm you up, it ain't snuggling."

"It so totally is."

Sanford lets go only long enough to reach behind himself and turn on the lamp, Deimos screwing his eyes shut with a hiss to shield them from the light. "Alright, popsicle, y'know what? I'm cold. Just humor me."

Deimos narrows his eyes, hoping the warmth on his cheeks isn't as visible as it feels, and then reluctantly scoots in closer. "Pretty sure wearing a shirt would fix that for you."

"Nah, makes my nipples chafe."

"Aaaaaand going back to my side—" Deimos tries to pull back but his legs are still very much locked in place.

"I'm kidding!" Sanford teases, or at least it sounds like teasing, grabbing at the front of Deimos's shirt to keep him from moving away any further. "C'mon, what's got you acting all squirrelly?"

"Nothin' just- these places give me the creeps is all."

Sanford stares at him, unconvinced.

Deimos starts to fidget.

"You're such a bad liar."

"I'm… just tired?"

"Nah."

With a sigh, Deimos lets himself be pulled back into Sanford's arms. Sanford's strong, warm arms. "Just… forget it. I'll be good in the morning."

The light goes back out and then calloused fingertips card through the hair on the side of his head and warm lips press just below his hairline. Familiar. Something he wouldn't think twice about anywhere but a shared bed in a dingy motel.

"You know you can talk to me, right?" Sanford's voice sounds tired, a bit exasperated, his fingers tracing lazy patterns into Deimos's scalp that have his brain shutting down despite the thoughts that still try to race.

"Mmmm? Oh… Yeah, no, I know." Deimos tucks his head under Sanford's chin, pressing his cold nose into the crook of his neck. "I'm just tired, honest."

"If you say so… Gnight, D."

"Night."

—————

He's the first up. He's always the first up. Slipping out of the bigger man's hold with practiced motions and leaving the room almost silently.

The sun hasn't made it up over the horizon yet, just enough light in the sky for everything to be a deep blue, the chill from last night still lingering around him but not nearly as cold as it had been. Goosebumps rise up on his skin but the sensation is pleasant compared to his too-hot skin.

They've shared beds before, but that was because they were drunk and it was convenient to crash at each other's dorms instead of sending someone packing in the middle of the night. And sure, they probably cuddled in those instances and woke up tangled in each other's limbs, but they were drunk. Last night had been completely unnecessary, 100% intentional, inexcusable, honest-to-god cuddling. In a bed that's seen more action than Deimos ever will in his lifetime with a man that he'd live and die for in a heartbeat. That kind of cuddling.

Deimos fishes the cigarette pack out of his jeans and slides one of the sticks between his lips, then lights it with his thumb. That first hit of nicotine eases his nerves as he surveys the desert, watching the smoke drift away as he exhales and taking his idiotic thoughts with it.

It doesn't matter. Doesn't mean anything. Means even less when he hears the door behind him creak open and then his reason for breathing hugs him from behind and Sanford's face presses into the top of his head.

"You left me to freeze to death," Sanford mumbles groggily into his hair, and Deimos will pretend that he shivers because of the cold and not the roughness Sanford's voice from sleep.

"Needed a smoke." Deimos takes another long drag from his cigarette, sinking back into Sanford's hold as the man grumbles something that he can't quite make out.

He's never been a morning person, always taking a good half-hour or more to fully wake up. Not that Deimos minds. Not when it gets him featherlight kisses trailed slowly from the back of his ear down the side of his throat.

It doesn't mean anything. Sanford is just cuddly in the mornings. The content sigh that ghosts over his neck still makes him feel warm all over.

"Come back to bed," Sanford whispers, and the next kiss is a lot more deliberate, sloppy but it still drags this quiet, fluttery little whine from his lungs that makes Sanford smile against his skin.

"What happened to leaving first thing?"

"Ten more minutes."

"Doc is gonna be pissed."

"Five more minutes?"

……….Fuck it.

Deimos takes a final drag and then stamps his cigarette out against the railing, letting Sanford pull him back into the room and back to bed.

Back to the bed they shared.

Their bed.

"Mmmm so warm…" Sanford drags him down onto the mattress and buries his face in Deimos's neck, back to those soft little kisses as a hand strokes up and down his abdomen.

Deimos laughs it off, because if he doesn't he's going to make a fool of himself. "One of Nevada's Most Wanted right here, ladies and gents."

Lips migrate upward, dancing along his jawline and chin, just above and right below his mouth before moving to his cheek. Sanford has never kissed him on the lips. Probably never will, because this doesn't mean anything to either of them and it'd be silly to pretend that it does. Deimos turns his head back to snipe a few of his own along Sanford's jaw before a thumb on his chin guides him to lay his head back down.

"Let me," Sanford whispers against his temple, resuming that lazy path across the side of Deimos's face. His forehead, just below his eye, the bridge of his nose, back down to tease around Deimos's lips before returning to his neck.

The covers are pulled up over them and then Sanford tugs him in so their bodies are flush together. Hands slide up under Deimos's shirt and with a parting kiss to the back of his neck, Sanford finally relents and lays down fully.

"I uh… I'm pretty sure five minutes is up, man."

"Nope, it starts now. Had to warm you up first."

"And here I thought you were just happy to see me. Should'a known you were a heat leech," Deimos says dramatically, going to sit up but Sanford's grip is as firm as ever.

The quiet snoring coming from behind him tells him he's stuck.

—————

Five more minutes somehow turned into another hour before they actually hit the road, Sanford taking over on driving for the remainder of the trip.

"I'm telling you, it ain't snuggling if it's for survival."

"San, neither of us were dying."

"You should've seen how bad you were shivering last night. I technically did you a favor if we're being honest here."

"Listen, I ain't complaining. Like, at all. But we snuggled. We are snugglers. Grade-A, USDA-certified snugglers. And that last 'five minutes' was all for you, Casanova."

"You're thinking about it too hard."

"Nuh-uh. You're gonna have to start buying me drinks now. You actively owe me a drink for this morning."

It gets a hearty laugh out of Sanford as he reaches over and hooks his pinkie into Deimos's. "Deal. I want more than five minutes though."

The gesture doesn't mean anything. Sanford's smile shouldn't mean anything. The blush that creeps up Deimos's face isn't allowed to mean anything. "Deal."

#felt like it was too short to put on ao3 but friends liked it so #tumblr exclusive fic yay #madness combat #madcom #deimos #sanford #sanmos #fanfic #fanfiction #fluff #my writing

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