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They’d never seen the Sergeant so out of it.
Gaz’s hands wouldn’t stop fiddling, touching the packs on his chest or the dangling assortment of flash bangs and frag grenades; rope tethered to the belt on his waist re-wound with twitching fingers.
It was as though his body was unable to stand still; the sentiment totally encompassing his nerves except for the ones inside of his eyes.
Brown the color of dark wood glares at the bloody dog tags laid out on the table with heat so intense the very air was hot from it; burning forests trapped behind pupils so tiny they were hard to find.
“Drone surveillance picked up activity farther North.” The Captain speaks in clipped sentences, but the darting of his attention to the younger man was telltale. Price’s hands are pressed into the tabletop, a crumbled and burned map under the pressure of his gloved limbs. Soap and Ghost spare tense glances. “They’re moving her again.”
“Anything on her condition?” Johnny asks, hands over his chest shifting to grip his biceps tighter as Price places a red ‘X’ on the map with a pen from his breast pocket.
“Nothing’s confirmed.” Grunting, the Captain moves back and says no more. Kyle’s jaw clenches even harder, fingers going up to take off his ball cap and run a hand over his hair harshly.
Ghost blinks down at the map, vision sliding over to the dog tags that should be around your neck and the crimson flecks stuck to the dented metal. A broken clasp. “Proof of life?”
“Negative.”
The silence draws long.
“Then what are we fucking waiting around for?” Kyle’s voice bounces off the walls, growl ripping through atoms like a knife sharper than his outwardly displayed aggression. Price’s sharp gaze snaps over.
Gaz’s cap hits the table in a puff of air as he tosses it down, the fabric crumpled from the force of his grip moments prior. The frantic pounding of the Brit’s heart was incomparable to any moment before now—immeasurable floods of adrenaline and anger at everyone’s stationary attitudes. An ocean that he was drowning in.
This wasn’t how it was supposed to go.
“Kyle,” John grates out, blue eyes stiff, “mind yourself.”
“‘Mind myself?!’” The Sergeant yells, fist slamming down onto the table as the other points to the dog tags. “It’s our bloody fault she’s in enemy hands in the first place! We sent her in half-arsed and expected her to do a job that would take an army.”
“She is an army,” Ghost utters lowly, rolling his shoulders.
“And what do you suggest, Sergeant, hm?” Price tilts his head, brow raised sternly to the map as Soap shifts anxiously. “Go in guns blazing? Do you fancy a one-way trip? We don’t even know for certain if she’s still in country.”
Kyle scoffs and looks around, shaking his head before bringing back his focus; trying to take down enough air to push back the blank denial that he feels.
It’s been a week. He can smell the scent on the breeze as sweat runs down his neck. Everyone outside of this room thinks that you’re already dead. Except maybe Laswell.
It was…it was an insult. It was wrong.
Those dog tags on the table proved nothing and with a swift hand, Kyle snatches them up without another word. The Brit needed to hold something of yours—try and pull the DNA left behind into his own and hold it like a precious gift between his ribs.
Leaning forward in his conviction, Gaz growls out, “She’d do the same for us, Captain.”
So much can be conveyed through eyes; mere glances. At that moment the ocean battled the woods, two forms as immobile as the Earth itself.
John’s jaw clenches.
“Well, then it’s a good thing that we’re here instead of her, eh? These things take timing, Gaz. Tact. Resources.” Kyle’s lips pull back. “Bloody intelligence.”
The younger man snaps.
“If we waste any more time on fucking intelligence they’ll be nothing left for ‘er ‘cept a damn body bag and a grave!”
“Screw your head back on, Sergeant! Do you think this is helping?” Raw authority pierces the hearts of the man in the room—all unconsciously straightening despite the less-than-formal attitudes. It was a flip that had been flicked, personalities so quickly switching between a stern mentor to a ferocious leader of killers.
Kyle's feet re-situate themselves under him as his fingers tangle in the chain of your left-behind belonging, forcing the metal deep into his glove until he hears the alloy crunch against one another.
John glares through tight lids but reels back his shallow breaths with a snarled order.
“Get some air. Now.”
“Sir.” Harsh affirmation echoes, and before the Sergeant can even realize it, his feet have taken him outside the barriers of the safehouse. Aggressively, he slams the door behind him with a strong hand, listening to it shake the air before it all falls silent.
The dying light of a far-off sun hits his face, but the embarrassing heat of self-loathing is growing even more warm.
Long golden grass flinches in a hot breeze, swishing with a gentle rustle of organic matter. Like a long-lost druid, the sounds of nature lend a sort of grounding presence to the Brit. A bird call. A shadow of a deer.
“Fuckin’ hell.” Whispering under his breath, Kyle’s nostrils flare as he takes down deep breath after deep breath. His pulse rages faster than a tiger in a trap, lungs rapidly forcing out air faster than he could take it down.
The man bends down, hands going to his knees as your tags clink together in a closed fist. It had been too easy to blow up—impulsive of him. He wasn’t like that, he can’t be.
Price was right. It wasn’t helping you.
Shame takes the place of irritability. Another breath of wind goes by, and Kyle’s lids flicker shut as his lips thin into a tight line.
“Bloody fucking hell, Love…Where are you? What have the bastards done?” There’s a part of him that holds a wrapped gift in his heart. The paper is made of anger, once peeled back the cardboard underneath of anxious anticipation. A golden knife of fear is the prize in the center, corralled between tissue made of self-hatred.
Few things made Gaz feel guilty—in his profession guilt was a down-road path. He learned to take the world for what it is. Deal with the consequences and strive to understand the reasons. But there was no reason for this. No morality or mercy.
You were gone, and that shouldn’t be possible.
“Christ, where are you?” He whispers again, standing back up and placing both hands to rest and the junction of his neck; elbows sticking out. The grass tickles his thighs, brushing against the stained fabric of his pants.
It had all happened so fast.
—
“You owe me a drink after this, 2-6.” Your voice wafted through the line, grunts, and thin curses following soon after. “And money to get my clothes deep cleaned. I loved this fucking shirt, you prick.”
Gaz snorts, sniper scope trained on the entrance to the sewer line, “Fair point. But why’re you wearing a nice shirt into an active war-zone, Love?”
“Both of you, focus.” The Captain’s voice lowly echoes over the line, fizzing the earpieces attached to everyone with black wire. “How’s it looking in there, Lamb?”
“Ah, come on, Cap. It’s just a way to pass the time.” Kyle blinks, spying on the multiple hostiles at the roadblock.
The corralled area of occupied houses looks like a tunnel of death; armored vehicles and an automatic weapon in every hand. Mines on the roads leading up to this secluded mountain town. Upwards of thirty armed individuals, if Ghost’s little night-time spree from the previous day was correct. Soap had sworn more were coming from the East.
No way straight through, so the only way was under. Literally.
You were the only one small enough to fit into the sewer grate. Ghost and Soap too physically large, Price the one who needed to give orders to everyone else, and Kyle, who was too tall. They were sending you in alone to plant Johnny’s homemade charges on the trucks and leave as undetected as possible before they were detonated.
“We can all pass time at Base when the mission’s done, eh?” Price’s voice is bland. “Lamb, sitrep. Now.”
“Well, I’m not one to share the glory, Captain, but do you want to come and take a look for yourself?”
“Rather not.” Another grunt and a half-hidden gag were nearly enough to make Soap start chuckling. Kyle kicks the Scot beside him with his shin to shut him up, but a smile was already peeling on his lips.
“That’s what I was thinking, Sir.”
“We’ll have you back out soon, Little Lady,” Soap pipes in, Ghost standing a few feet back into the treeline where they all wait anxiously. Eyes trained. Fingers twitching to be with you.
“And then I’ll give each and every one of you a big hug,” you draw out the word ‘big’ as Gaz laughs. He tightens his grip on the rifle and shuffles ever closer to the ridge line, trying to pinpoint the grate you would come out of.
His heart squeezes when one begins to shake, the edge peaking up.
“You’ll have to catch us first.” The tall Sergeant teases, “Easy, then. Patrol comin’ from the left. One klick.”
“Copy.” A form quickly jumps out from the underground, fingers gripping the cover to slowly lay it back down without noise. Like a cat, your far-off figure darts behind a stack of crates, sliding on your knees as four armed men slip around the corner farther up the road. A hushed whisper, “And you know I’m faster than you, Garrick.”
Gaz smirks, fixing the cap on his head with one hand. “Don’t I.”
“Quit your flirting.” Ghost huffs, now sporting binoculars. “Lamb, move in four. Take the alley and double back to the red street sign and push right. You’ll miss the patrols entirely.”
“Do as he says.” Price peeps in. “We’re losing daylight and don’t have night vision rigs. But don’t get cocky.”
“Soap,” you speed over the ground like you wore wings on your back, only a pistol in your dominant hand and a knife in the other. “Any words of wisdom for your masterpieces?”
“Don’t be holdin’ ‘em when they go off?” The Scot offers, raising a brow that you can’t see. “Else you’ll be worrin’ about more than a shit-stained shirt and pair ‘o pants. Sooner end up confessin’ your sins to God, truthfully.”
“Well, I’d put in a word for all of you—don’t worry.”
“Don’t bother.” Ghost deadpans.
They watch you sneak from one truck to another, shimmying to the underbelly and hooking on the charges with zip-ties from your packs. Only three hostiles got a glimpse of you, and they were all quickly dispatched with the blade of your knife, bodies stuffed under the cars or thrown into crates.
It was going well. Incredibly well.
“Three more to go, Love,” Gaz speaks lowly, trailing you with the scope as his anxious heart somewhat lessons. “You’re doing great. Be back home in no time.”
“Aye,” Soap says, “drinks’ll be on me.”
Brown eyes tracking, they see your advancing form freeze with sudden ice in your veins. Scarecrow still. Immediately, Kyle tenses in a mirror image, fingers tightening over the side of his rifle with skipping beats.
Opening his mouth, your voice sounds small as it speaks before him; the sentence leaves the Sergeant’s lids peeling back in horror. A yell to run stuck on his lips.
“I thought you said the snipers were all down.” Blood draining from his face, the Brit doesn’t have time to react before a loud boom reverberates over the hills, a bullet slicing through the air as easily as it would go through flesh.
Everyone’s shouting over the comms except Gaz, who, for the first time in his life, feels utterly helpless. It seems like ages that he watches you collapse to the ground in a writhing heap; right thigh a bloody mess of what it used to be. Slow like a rock floating through space.
And then his mouth is opening in a scream of your name that’s so guttural the very ridgeline seemed to shake; electricity in the air. Fear. He’s afraid.
The other hostiles descend on your position as your downed form desperately tries to stop the spraying blood from exploded arteries and shredded muscles. Panicked static rings out from the earpiece.
“Get your guns on the convoy!” Price orders, but Gaz is already firing shots before the words are out, the recoil of the stock leaving a vile sting behind that goes bone deep.
There was only so much that he could do.
As your body disappears into one of the vehicles, dragged and thrown like a ragdoll, there’s a moment where your lips slur a last comment through the line.
“Soap, detonate!”
“No!” Gaz rushes to his feet, about to throw himself down the ridge. He would have, too, if Price hadn’t shoved his way there through the trees to jerk him back by the collar. “Lamb!”
“Sergeant!” More arms grasp at Kyle’s arms and side, struggling against the force at which was possessing the man. They have to slam him to the ground, where Gaz still curses and rages at them.
It was like…no, no, he didn’t love you…Did he?
“She’s gone, Kyle,” Price grips the front of his button-up’s neck, tight fist going white. “She’s gone, but she’s not dead, alright?! There’s too many.”
Brown stares up into blue, feral mouth parted and panting like a restrained dog. Sweat dripping along a dark brow and bug-eyed. Soap glares off to the now-moving group of vehicles, but anyone with a brain can tell that he’d not once thought of pressing down on the manual trigger to his bombs.
“Alright, Sergeant?” The Captain breathes, shaking the boy under him lightly. “We’re gettin’ her back.”
Kyle feels a burning behind his eyes, a bitter sinking in his gut.
It was no secret that the two of you were close. Lunch was shared in the commons, sparring matches that ended in full-belly laughter and sweaty hugs. The list went on and none of the others of One-Four-One could attest to being as intertwined as the pair were; attached at the hip like a married couple with your longing glances. There was a running bet going on how long it would take for them to get together. Price had even staked a prized cigar on it.
It was all but assured by the subtle glances and longer-than-normal touches. Eyes going wide with innocence at any close contact followed by shortness of breath that could be tracked a mile away.
But not only Gaz was feeling the stomach punch at this loss. Jaws clenched with a promised vengeance from all parties. This was personal.
“Are we clear?” Price tries again, lightly shoving Kyle’s chest.
A pause with a strained breath of air, grinding teeth nearly sparking like iron under a hammer.
“Clear, Sir.” The dark tone made the Captain’s eyes lightly go wide. “We’re getting her back…And I’m laying every single one in a grave.”
—
Price exits the house to find Gaz sitting with his back to the safehouse wall, staring off into the field blankly and still clutching your dog tags. He blinks slowly, lips going thin with how to handle this.
They’d found the tags in the dirt—laying in a pool of blood. Your blood. Must have broken in the struggle, no doubt. The Captain didn’t like losing people on his watch, it made him feel like a rookie again. Much less when that sentiment was literal, or when he got to know his fellows like he had with you. Death was inevitable, but an abduction of one of his own and someone he considered family…
John’s chest rumbles in a grunt.
“Head back on, then?” Gaz snaps his neck to the side, blinking harshly. Still out of it.
A clearing of a throat echoes out over the landscape, “Cap.” Gaz sighs. “Nearly there, Sir.”
“Good. Lost you for a moment.” Silence takes hold, but it’s not long before the Sergeant huffs and forces himself to stand up on shaky legs. Price stares from the side of his eye, arms going to cross before his head is shaking in exasperation.
“Anything new?” Kyle itches at his arm, absentmindedly slipping the tags over his neck to conjoin with his own. His fingers brush over your indented name.
John answers honestly, “Negative.” The anxiety is all but seen as it seeps from the Brit as Price licks his lips, shifting on his feet, “But we’re moving out at first light tomorrow.” Gaz’s lashes caress his under-brow, legs taking him to stand closer, “Checking the location up North.”
“Do you think that she’s there—”
“Kyle, you’re not coming along.” Time stops as John’s no-nonsense face levels to the other. It was rare to have a Captain exclude one of his main operators—certainly in a situation as dire as this. Has the man lost his mind? Kyle froze, gobsmacked, as he started into raging waters.
Not coming? That’s nonsense of course I’m going with.
“What?” The world goes red as the sentence really sets in. “Price what in the fucking hell are you on about, eh? I’m going to be there when she’s found; part of this was my fault to begin with. Not to mention she’s my bloody best friend!”
John barely lets him get the words out before his own are spilling into the air like an overturned bowl with liquid truth, “It’s because you love her, Sergeant!”
Gaz’s heated response stumbles to a hasty stop. John moves to grip the man by both shoulders, digging his fingers to make every work more punctuated as Kyle’s face heats to a violent degree. The tips of his ears were steadily burning; mouth opening and closing to spew denials. His heart breaks against his ribs.
“S-Sir…I-I know…It’s not—” Desperation and the truth mix into a concoction of slipping words. John chuckles numbly, shaking his head.
“I’m not a fool, Son. Certainly not fucking blind. No one here is.” Gaz swallows the saliva in his throat, unable to say the words out loud, but the realization in his own mind was startling. He…did love you, didn’t he?
No one made him feel the way you did—knew his hobbies or his passions and took them on simply because of a want to be closer. The memories of your skin brushing his own made him anxious to feel you some days, to steal your warmth for his own. How you laughed; how you smiled at him. Your doubts and your fears that you shared in a place of vulnerability but were soon met with the same sentiments back. Speaking to you was simple and beyond easy. There was no need to pretend.
You.
Cerulean eyes see the sweep of silent shock with a nod of satisfaction as the Sergeant’s expression blanks. Never before had Kyle felt the fear he did when you were taken, the bottom-of-the-barrel distress and anguish—he had been ready to give his life for you without question. It was more than comradery; more than a years-long friendship. More than a simple infatuation.
His neck weighs heavy with your tags.
All the man wants to do is hold you in his arms and feel your pulse against his; see your smile. In between the countless operations and shared time at Home Base, the Brit had come to care for you more than he did himself. Longed for your presence at his side as violently as a man wishes for air or water.
“I…” Kyle breathes, “Oh, fuck.”
“I can’t have you along, Kyle,” Price releases him and takes a step back, clenching his jaw with a bit of pity in his gaze. “Because the question is…can you handle it if we find her dead?”
The Captain walks away with a final pat on his shoulder, leaving behind the Brit who suddenly remembers the small trackable GPS tag inside with the leftover gear.
His body stills with a firm purpose; a plan lighting behind his eyes.
“She’s alive. I know she is.”
—
They’d been moving you so frequently that you wondered every time you came back to consciousness if you’d be in a new room. Most of the time you were. The days had started to bleed together. You weren’t sure when day or night was because of the wrappings over your eyes, the tight bind that gives you headaches and digs into your flesh.
All you know is that the interrogations were getting harder and harder to fight against.
Where the team was, what organization you belong to, what your name is, the questions all ranged from personal info to government secrets—base sites and weapons caches. Still, your lips stuck firmly shut beyond the grunts and whimpers from their fists being brought down at every mute denial.
They had chucked you into a small room this time, from what you could tell. You internally hoped they wouldn’t shove a bag over your head again and begin waterboarding you. There were only so many times you could feel like you were drowning before you beg for anything to put an end to it.
Groaning, the blackness stays as you weakly move your head along the floor, cheek skinning itself of coarse concrete before your forehead digs into the ground. Opening your mouth with a sharp exhale, your tied hands shake with the constant fight or flight instinct going off in your brain. Being on this much adrenaline for so long had to be bad for you, no doubt.
The remains of your shirt and pants are all that clothe you—the packs and various objects in your vest had been taken and ripped open for any clue as to who you were. They found nothing, of course.
“Shit…” You growl, clenching your teeth when the carelessly wrapped fabric around your right thigh bunches as you force yourself into an uncomfortable sitting position.
Leaning back into the wall and panting, you slouch with heated shivers.
The sizable wound was infected. Badly. You could smell it even with a broken nose—the stench of rotting skin and puss—but you didn’t need to get a whiff of it to know how truly bad it was. Nerve damage. A shattered bone that travels into areas outside its assigned parallel home.
Never mind how you couldn’t even walk on it because it wouldn’t move. But they had made sure you wouldn’t bleed out, at the very least.
Clenching your jaw you try to silence the pulsing pain in your body, stemming from every source like the roots of a tree. That’s when the sounds start up—the distant yelling.
Anticipating another round of interrogations, you gather what little strength you have left and down a deep breath.
Shuffling feet pound over the ground outside your door, shouting so loud travels to your sensitive ears that you flinch at every command and tense. Behind your back, your hands clench as the ringing increases, reminiscent of a fly in your soft tissue.
Get yourself together. What would Gaz do?
“Throw him in with the other!” All the metal in this place is rusted and flaking, so it wasn’t a surprise when the door slammed open the hinges screamed with rage.
Feral rage was felt in the air, and behind the fabric, your eyes carefully widened at the loud grunts and curses. A struggle? Your mind was too addled to think clearly about what that might mean.
“Company, Girl. Enjoy.” Vile skin on skin echoes out as hurt coughing begins to sound swiftly after; a slam to the ground accompanied by the gasping of breath that only lives after a punch to the gut.
You swore you heard ribs crack before the door was once again ripped shut, the walls vibrating with force and the bouncing laughter through the material.
“Shit position, huh?” Your words are cut out with a grinding of your vocal cords. “How’d they get you then?”
“L—” Another wet cough, “Lamb.” Your body stills as if the live wire that was attached to you was suddenly dissected from your brain.
That isn’t…
“Lamb!” Hands are on you, shaking your shoulders softly. It was warm. He was warm, and those fingers. Familiar with the scents of linen and sandalwood as its particles seep into your nose. As the blindfold is being united from the back of your head, you realize.
“Kyle?”
“Fucking hell, Love. Oh, let's have a look at you, eh?” The single light hanging from the ceiling leaves you hissing, lids snapping shut as pupils tighten, but you quickly power through it as the fabric falls.
He was touching you, sliding his grip over raised skin and cuts; hand cupping your cheeks as you blink up at him.
Gaz looked near tears. Those brown eyes like bark gleaming as they level you with a stare so intense it leaves you short of air.
“There you are,” he laughs wetly, and you see the cut lip and slash above his eyebrow in a trance of disbelief. The ragged appearance of no gear and ripped fabric stained with crimson and dirt. But still smiling at you. Beaming with blood over his teeth. “I knew you’d be alive, you bloody beautiful woman. I knew it—nothing keeps my girl down.”
Your lips quiver mutely as your eyes start going blurry. Everything was throbbing, but the never-still hands on your flesh were made of pure energy—healing hurts with nothing but a brush of a thumb.
“Why are you…?” Kyle pulls back, rapidly checking the wounds that leave you comatose with a spark of panic in his expression. “How did you…?”
“Oh, what have they done to you?” The rope around your wrists falls, and sagging forward, Gaz’s collarbone is suddenly the most comfortable pillow. Warm skin. “Shit, Love, we’ll have you right as rain in no time, yeah? I just need you to talk to me.”
The Sergeant curls over you, bringing you close and squeezing gently as wet tears slide down your cheeks. Hand coming up, your broken fingers weave through bodies to press into his pec.
Your lips pull in a sob at the sound of Gaz’s chest beating with life, the thum of his pulse as you press your ear to his neck in need of human contact that was genuine and pure. It was only fitting it was him to bring you back from hopelessness.
It had always been Kyle, and it always would be. Your eyes would soften for no one else.
“Speak to me,” the Brit whispers again, pleading, and you feel him shaking and tightening his grip as your fingers dig into him. “Please.”
Your wet laugh hurts your lungs.
“I knew you’d find me, you big idiot. You owe me a new damn shirt.” Kyle’s nose digs into your scalp, chuckling and running his fingers over your back reverently. Everything about you made his world slow—nothing else mattered.
“I’ll buy you every shirt you ask for, Love. Anything you want and it’ll all be yours, bet every ounce of my life on it.” Your heart stutters with love and care; untamed affection for the man who holds you and lays firm kisses on your head.
There were so many questions.
How did he get here? How did he get caught? Better than all of those, how did he expect to get the both of you out in one piece? You couldn’t walk without help and even then you were dead weight.
You nuzzle deeper into him and pull down a tear-stained hitch of breath. It’s easier to believe you’d be alright when his rapid pulse is peeling back fog and making your skin burn with hope. You had thought of him much over the course of this imprisonment, what he meant to you.
Blinking slowly as you commit Gaz’s touch to memory, the pace of his pulse and how he holds you like you would disappear if he let you go. Shaking.
The side of your lips twitch.
“I only want you.” Whispering the confession, the room suddenly didn’t seem so dark; so full of pain.
Kyle tilts his head down, staring at you with eyebrows high up his head and heart skipping beats. His fingers slow to a stop as one of your eyes meets his, meek smile playing on your lips.
“Too cheesy?” The genuine laugh that exits his lungs is just about the best sound you’ve ever heard.
“Never.” Gaz calms down, shaking his head and beaming. “You have me. You always will.” You hum softly as lips meet your forehead, resting there, and letting your lashes flutter.
A weight falls from you, but now wasn't the time for sappy kisses.
“Do I want to know how you got here?” The question is genuine, though the tone is teasing. A hesitant chuckle later and you’re eager to hear the story. You raise a brow weakly as the man tries to clean the blood from your temple.
“Walked in?” The answer tilts with mischievousness with a quick comment about a GPS tracking tag that’s sending a triangulated signal right back to the rest of One-Four-One.
Your face tightens in confusion.
“Where the hell is that, then? They searched me when I was brought in. Couldn’t have been different for you.”
“Erm,” you got the sense he was blushing by the way his eyes avoided yours.
“Garrick?”
“I…well,” expressions clash, “I may have, stop lookin’ at me like that, I suppose one could say I…swallowed it.”
You blank. “The fuck did you just say?”
“Look—there wasn’t another way to make sure the others would know where I went! I left before they were packed.” Your panic grows.
“You came alone?!”
“Well, they should bloody know I’m here now!” Just as the words enter and process in your shell-shocked brain a loud alarm starts to blare from out in the hallway, leading the both of you to slap your hands over your ears and yell in alarm.
“Can you stand?!” Gaz calls, and you shake your head as your forehead presses into his chest. “Alright—I’m going to pick you up, copy?”
Speaking above the chaos, people’s shadows start sprinting from behind the door, whizzing past like ghosts as the first shots start to ring out.
“Ribs?” You can’t help but ask, talking only as loud as you were able to. Kyle frowns, shifting as the pain in his chest sparks.
It had been a good hit. Two broken. In all honesty, the man had forgotten all about the sensation of needles pinching his lungs until you had mentioned it. His jaw clenched, looking down at you with immense concern.
“Don’t worry about it. You’re the priority here, yeah?” Hands left on your hands to steady you, the sounds of gunfire get closer. “Shit, Little Lamb, you look horrible.”
Kyle grunts and finds he can’t stand up straight, spine perpetually hunched as one hand whips to his side in agony. You roll your eyes, pushing up on your good leg and grasping at the Sergeant for stability. He grips your elbows with a startled look on his face.
“Hey, I said I would—!”
“I’d say you look as bad as I do, but that would be a lie.” Leaning into him, you trade weight, hands going to each other's waists instinctually; this technique was familiar to the both of you. “‘Did you really have to point it out?”
Helping carry the other’s weight, your bad leg is in between you, dragging uselessly as you fight for breath and grimace, lips peeled back to bare teeth. The both of you shake and fix your grips every few moments, and you feel Kyle’s gaze stuck to you stiffly.
As much as he was trying to be calm, seeing you falter and flinch was enough to put him into an anxious state. His head moves closer as you both slowly move to the door, screams and grenade blasts reverberating from what seems like just outside the barrier of the thin wall.
“Sorry,” Kyle breathes in tight breaths, limping, “probably sounds like a twat, didn’t I?”
You raise a brow, eyes falling shut for a few seconds just to blink back stubbornly, “Little bit.”
“Fuck, that’s on me.” Your smile is a strained one, but it’s nonetheless real.
Halfway to the door is when the other rooms in the hallway are being busted down one by one, harsh orders echoing over an otherwise silent building. The alarms had stopped just as suddenly as they had begun—as if nothing more than a memory of hail during a rainstorm.
“Doing alright? We can take a stop if it hurts, just say the word.” You’re about to respond to the Brit's hushed question when the door flies off its screaming hinges. A puff of air makes your eyes blink rapidly, flinching back into Gaz’s hold heavily.
He stiffens in pain but curls an arm over your shoulders just in case; twisting so you stay behind him.
“Lamb! Gaz!” Scottish. “Price—I found ‘em! West building, right side. Bring medical.” On your opposite side, a stocky figure steadies your free arm, taking you up to a straight position with little effort. “There you two are. Hell’s Bells, ‘Bout gave us all a heart attack.”
A kind, square, face makes you smirk as Gaz lets off a sigh of relief before raggedly coughing once more. You all make your way out of the room slowly.
“I partially blame you,” you murmur, body steadily losing feelings, “what happened to setting off the charges, Suds?”
“What, and let your little boyfriend wring my neck—pff! That’s hilarious, Lamb. Had a better chance with a damn wild beast.”
“I’d ‘ave done more than wring your neck,” Kyle whispers, leaving your cheeks heating something awful, as you send a quick glance to the Brit. He sees, and smirks down at you, split lip still dripping blood down his chin.
Outside is met with two sprinting forms descending like wolves.
Your eyes are blinking rapidly when Price and Ghost finally join up, their voices all but static to your selective ears. You know there was a light flashed in your eyes; prodding done on the infection of your leg crater and on the patchwork job of the hasty cauterization to keep you alive for intel gathering. The warm body at your side never left. Pulled you closer when you flinched or made a hiss of pain.
But it slid away sooner than you’d like to admit. But those caressing fingers were hypnotizing. They meant safety. Friendship. Love.
“Bugger off,” a chilled command was settled when a man was trying to make his way to assist Gaz’s facial cuts and ribs.
The Sergeant was moving you to the Humvee, and a team of other medics quickly exited to help carry you into the vehicle and the flat interior bed. Kyle and One-Four-One would be there for all of it—when you nodded off again and when you slurred curse words at the woman working on your leg.
Never once did the brown gaze stray from your face; memorizing the twitching expressions of drug-induced sleep and the reactions to the quick carving of infected flesh.
“I should discharge you for what you did, Sergeant.” Price speaks with a barely-restrained anger from one of the seats in the front; looking back from the mirror with a clenched jaw and raging orbs. “Do you have any idea how fuckin’ sideways that could have gone?”
Kyle blinks as the last of the stitches are pulled through your flesh, running his thumb over the back of your hand as Ghost and Soap listen silently.
“Garrick!”
“If you’re expecting me to apologize, Sir, I won't.” The medics pause before sharing shocked glances. Gaz side-eyes the rearview mirror, staring firmly as you shift in your oblivion and grumble. He wants to take you into his arms and sleep, but he also just wants to look at you.
So he does.
The Sergeant's eyes slither back and stay there indefinitely.
Price sighs aggressively, about to bark an order before he spies the silent calm on the younger man’s face as he stares at you. The softening of his brows, the instinctual parting of lips, and the sloping of shoulders like a weight was completely gone. It was the utterly true image of a boy so devoted that it left the Captain halting his words before they exited.
Gaz looked at you like you were the only person to ever exist.
John closes his eyes and breathes out stiffly, shaking his head. “Kyle,” he asks.
“Hm?” No change in attention.
“...Never do something that stupid again, yeah?”
There was a tiny hidden smirk, though it was more from your grip on his hand tightening, dragging him closer even in your sleep. The soft smile on your lips.
His free hand brushes hair from your forehead slowly.
“If it involves her, Captain, I’d strap a charge to my chest and run enemy lines.”
—
A golden sunrise, tangled fingers; gentle lips.
“I think I love you.”
Smiles like a God gracing Earth as sterile sheets rustle. Silk-like giggles as swapped dog tags clink together with a promise. An oath.
“Hm, then I think I love you more.”