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Soap’s breath came in dull, heavy pants as he pinned the private to the mat. His legs shook slightly as he waited for her to either move or tap out. She struggled briefly beneath him, arms attempting fruitlessly to push herself up, but his weight held her down. She tapped the dirt in defeat, and he quickly hopped off, offering a hand to help her up. She accepted it gratefully and smiled at him, with a muttered ‘Good match sir,’, to which he nodded. She would go far if she would learn to focus on how she shifted her weight when dodging. He made a mental note to help her improve on that.
Most of the recruits were sat on the dusty ground around the thrown together outdoor sparring ring, which was really nothing more than a circle of dirt bordered by a few sad looking sandbags and white spray paint. Soap had decided to move the recruits out of the nice indoor facilities with padded floors to a more realistic sparring scenario, and they were none too happy about it.
The sun beat down from above, and most of them cradled water bottles and fanned themselves with their shirts. The weather itself seemed to have forgotten that they were meant to be in England and had instead served up some kind of Australian summer day. The majority of the rookies were sat on the floor, despite the dust, while a few remained standings, sweat dripping down their faces. Soap was sweaty and hot too, although he kept up a chipper attitude as he beat the recruits one by one. He didn’t expect any of them to beat him, they had only been on base for a week at most, but it was still good to gain insight into their strengths and weaknesses.
On the other side of the training grounds, Ghost and Price were hunched over a table under a shelter. An extension cord led out of the open door behind them to a fan that was propped on the table, and Soap couldn’t help but be jealous. Ghost’s t-shirt was tight around his shoulders and showed off his biceps and tattooed arms. They were poring over maps,plans and reports, all of which Soap found terribly boring, yet that shade (and Ghost) looked so good-
Whatever. He had recruits to whip into shape. He could focus on Ghost and his stupid fan and his stupid muscles later.
“Alright!” he bellowed over the chatter that the group had fallen into while his attention was elsewhere. “Who’s up next?”
He was met with dead silence and had to forcefully stop himself from smacking his palm into his forehead. He briefly considered the merits of saying that if someone didn’t volunteer, he’d just choose, but under threat of sounding far too much like a primary school teacher, decided not to. He looked around the group again, where everyone was refusing to meet his eyes.
“I’ll have a shot,” came a familiar voice from behind him.
Soap turned around to see Gaz walking towards them, thumbs hooked in his belt and grinning.
“You’re on,” Soap said, and both men stepped into the ring.
The recruits had perked up slightly, obviously keen to see the results of a fight between the two sergeants.
They stepped a few paces away from each other, sinking down into a fighting stance. Gaz made the first move, as he always did. A vicious swing of his fist while his other arm protected his face. Soap ducked and drove a fist towards Gaz’s stomach, which was quickly blocked. Sweat dripped down Soap’s face as they continued to dance around each other, barely landing a single hit. Soap was tired from sparring with the recruits, and his movement started to get slow and sloppy. Gaz surprised him with a boot to the side, but Soap reciprocated with a solid blow to the other man’s torso while he was unbalanced. Soap’s muscles ached and screamed at him.
Eventually, Gaz’s foot collided with the side of his knees, and he tumbled to the ground. Soap threw out his arms to break his fall, but a sharp sting sliced along his forearm, causing him to gasp in pain and clutch at his arm as he crashed into the ground. He glanced down at the limb and let out a loud stream of curses when he saw the amount of shiny red coating his hand and arm. Gaz stopped immediately and crouched down beside him. A chunk of glass was still imbedded in Soap’s arm. The amount of movement in the ring must have disturbed the layers of dirt, bringing buried glass to the surface.
Soap let out a low whine of pain as Gaz poked at the glass.
“What the fuck was that.” Came a booming voice from the other side of the grounds. Soap ignored it in favour of attempting to pull the glass out of his arm, only succeeding in causing another cascade of blood down past his wrist. The dirt was dotted with red patches, and he would be lying if he said he didn’t feel a little sick.
“Get the fuck out of here, all of you!” someone barked from above him, before Ghost dropped quickly to his knees beside him, all but shoving Gaz out of the way.
“What happened? Who did this?” Ghost demanded, failing to keep the growl out of his voice as he wrenched Soap’s hand away from his injured arm.
“I’m fine Simon,” he said with a weak smile.
“Like fuck you are! Half your blood’s on the ground!” Ghost snarled, inspecting the wound with frantic eyes. Soap caught a hint of panic in his voice.
“Okay, I’m sorry. I’ll be okay Simon, I just have to walk to medical,” he said, placing a hand on Ghost’s knee.
“No.” Ghost’s low growl of a response caused Soap to raise his eyebrows and tilt his head slightly, looking at the man hovering over him. “I’m not letting anyone else touch you,”
And if that didn’t cause heat to pool in the base of Soap’s stomach, he didn’t know what would. But now was time to be rational.
“I’ve gotta get patched up, love,” he said, gesturing to his arm. Ghost paused for a second.
“I’ll do it,” he said, inspecting the wound closer.
“It’s pretty deep, it’ll need stitches,” Soap reasoned. Of course, he was the most rational person in this scenario. Gaz and Price hovered awkwardly around them, not wanting to get involved and be shoved away by Ghost.
“I know how to stitch. I have medical training,”
Soap realised that this was an argument he wasn’t going to win, so he sighed.
“Okay, now stop hovering over me so I can get up,” he said, shoving lightly at Ghost’s chest. But instead of helping him to his feet, Ghost scooped him up instead, holding him in a bridal carry with his head resting against Ghost’s shoulder.
“It’s my arm you dafty, not my leg,” he said.
“I know,” Ghost said, seemingly intent on carrying him.
Soap locked eyes with Price, who shrugged. But Soap didn’t break his gaze until Price spoke.
“You can patch him up Ghost, but if it gets any worse, he has to come to medical, okay?” the captain said.
“Fine,” Ghost huffed, before starting to walk towards his room.
Soap sighed and pressed his face into Ghost’s shoulder. He would have been lying if he said that his arm didn’t hurt quite a bit. He was also uncomfortably hot still, his clothes drenched in sweat, sticking uncomfortably to his body. His arm was currently held to his chest, soaking his shirt through with sticky blood. Ghost walked quickly but tried to keep him steady at the same time. His breath was a little quick, and Soap could hear his heart as it thumped restlessly.
“Who did it? Was it one of those fucking recruits? I’ll have their head,” he said with a conviction that convinced Soap that he was telling the truth.
“I was just tired and fell onto glass, nothin’ more to it Si,” Soap responded, and Ghost only huffed. Soap decided not to tell the whole story, he quite liked Gaz and it would be hard to joke around with the man if his head was in a different postcode than the rest of his body.
Ghost shoved open the door to his room with his hip, kicking it closed behind them. He deposited Soap gently on the bed before heading to the bathroom to find his med kit. Soap glanced down at his blood-soaked shirt and arm. Completely forgetting his earlier attempts, he went to poke at the glass, but a hand closed around his wrist before he could complete the action. He glanced up to see Ghost staring at him, mask abandoned. He stuck out his tongue and Ghost merely rolled his eyes. Ghost’s eyes locked on his stained shirt.
“Can I take it off?” he asked, and Soap nodded.
Ghost carefully manoeuvred Soap’s arms so he could free him from the shirt, which was quickly thrown into a corner of the room. The blood had soaked through, and his chest was stained red in places. Soap paled slightly when Ghost held up a pair of tweezers.
“Lay down,” Ghost ordered, and Soap leaned back, extending his arm out to the side slightly. He clutched tightly at the sheets in preparation for the pain, but was surprised when Ghost slipped his other hand into his grasp instead.
Ghost’s steady hand lowered the tweezers to the wound and gripped the glass. Soap tried not to move, but the glass still shifted slightly inside the wound, causing him to hiss and squeeze Ghost’s hand tightly. He preferred this to medical, where they would have likely done the exact same thing that Ghost was doing now. And he trusted Ghost far more than some stranger. Ghost pulled out the glass quickly, and after scanning the wound for more shards, seemed satisfied. He brought a bowl of water, with cleansing product added, Soap assumed, and a rag onto the bedside table, and began to carefully wipe at the wound. It stung like hell, and Soap’s grip tightened.
Once most of the blood and dirt had been wiped away, Ghost pulled out numbing cream and rubbed it gently around the wound. It would hurt like hell anyway, but maybe less so, or maybe it was just a placebo. Either way, Soap wasn’t letting go of Ghost’s hands. He didn’t watch as Ghost threaded the needle, keeping his gaze fixed firmly on the ceiling. He shivered as the tip of the needle dipped under his flesh, letting out a high whimper of pain, his teeth clenching tightly.
“Bite this,” Ghost was pressing something to his lips, and Soap’s teeth clenched down around what he realised was one of his leather belts. Soap wanted to crack a joke about it being kinky, but it came out muffled. A low whine was torn from his throat as the needle continued through his skin. Tears start to prick at the corners of his eyes, and by the time Ghost was halfway done, his cheeks were wet. Simon hadn’t stopped muttering to him.
“That’s it Johnny, it’s alright, you’re doing great. Not much more now, nearly there,” it was an endless stream of unconscious nonsense, but it did ease Soap somewhat.
Once the stitching was done, it took a solid minute of Simon’s gentle hands to ease his jaw open and off the leather. It took even longer for him to convince Soap to let go of his hand so he could bandage his arm. But they managed, and soon Soap was sitting upright with his arm wrapped in gauze and bandages. Simon stood up from where he had been kneeling to press a kiss to Soap’s forehead.
“You did great sweetheart,” he said, the pet name slipping from his lips before he could stop it.
A water bottle was pressed into Soap’s hands, and he took a long swig from it. He glanced over at his bloody shirt and grimaced. Ghost’s eyes followed his gaze. He then glanced at Soap’s sweaty, dirt stained trousers and his lips twisted, pulling at the scars on his face.
“You can borrow some of mine,” he said, standing up and walking to his drawers, rummaging around. Soap pulled off his trousers and threw them, so they landed alongside his shirt.
A bundle of clothes hit him on the side of the head, and he squawked in surprise, Ghost snickering at him. On the pile was a t-shirt a couple sizes too big, a pair of Ghost’s old cargo trousers that should fit alright, and a pair of Ghost’s boxer briefs. Soap’s cheeks tinted slightly at the last item, but he pulled it all on anyway, careful of his arm.
He had been correct, the trousers fit him well, but the shirt was baggy. The boxer briefs were a little too big as well. Soap noticed Ghost staring at his chest and looked down to see where ‘L.t Ghost’ was stitched onto the fabric.
“Like seeing your name on me, do you?” he teased, grinning when Ghost flushed red.
“We should probably let Price know that I didn’t die of infection, and get painkillers from medical” Soap said, jerking his head towards his bandaged arm.
Ghost’s mouth twisted into a grimace at the thought of leaving the pleasant atmosphere the two had created, before an idea seemed to strike him. He quickly moved to stand in front of where Soap was sitting and picked him up in one smooth motion, one arm around Soap’s back and the other under his knees.
“What’re you doing?” Soap asked as Ghost awkwardly opened the door and started the walk to Price’s office.
“I like carrying you,” Ghost said, glancing away.
“Aww, going soft on me L.t?” Soap teased, leaning forward to bump his forehead against’ Ghost’s.
“I will drop you.”
“Nah, you like me too much,”
“That I do Sergeant. That I do,”