Work Text:
Soap:
It takes a long time for Soap to be alright, after Coppan sells him out and he’s tranq’d down by cowards determined to take him apart at the behest of traitors. Weeks of waking up screaming, of snarling and biting Simon bloody until the haze cleared and he realized the person looking back at him was his Alpha, not a stranger wearing a grinning skull mask.
Those were the days that Soap would disappear onto the demolitions grounds, dragging enough explosives with him to level a city. He’d set up the barrels; build bombs until his fingers bled from the snag of jagged wires and pieces of shrapnel. He’d rig everything that was anchored down, his chest heaving and his eyes wide and rabid.
He wouldn’t detonate it all at once — he wasn’t trying to actually kill himself. He just needed it, needed this. The only thing he’s ever had that he built from the ground up, this hoarded and scavenged knowledge of his. This expertise he’s nurtured like a parent does their child, that has kept him safe since the day he lied his way into the military. It’s the best lullaby he’s ever found. The only thing that silences the screams.
So Soap sets the charges off one by one, standing danger close to the blast zone because he doesn’t care — this much will never be enough to kill him. He lets the debris pelt him, lets shrapnel peel him open for a few moments. Lets the roar burst his eardrums until blood leaks down the sides of his head. Barely gives himself long enough to avoid permanent damage before he’s setting the next one off.
Again and again, the repetition a mantra of the holiest prayer he will ever utter, Soap builds bombs and blows the grounds to craters. Until the buildings are so much gravel around him, until his shirt is more tears than fabric. Grit clinging to his wet cheeks and coating his mouth while he pants open-mouthed and worships the silence.
Sometimes Gaz is the one that comes to find him, filling Soap’s ruined nose with the scent of wet char and ash. His touches are firm, are grounding in an entirely different way. He pulls Soap into him, lets him hide against his packmate’s chest and piece himself back together from what’s left. He pets Soap’s hair, his shoulders, his back, presses his ear to Gaz’s chest so he can feel him talking, can feel the vibration of his singing until his ears are healed enough to hear it.
Other times it’s Ghost, quiet and patient. Waiting for his boy to exhaust himself before he carries him back to their shared nest. He’ll strip Soap with gentle hands, will kneel and lick every wound that isn’t healed yet; cleaning him while the shower warms up before ushering him under the spray and doing a more thorough job. He won’t speak, will let Soap zone out and drift until he’s ready to come back on his own. And Soap needs that just as much, needs someone who understands how it feels to be shattered in ways no one should ever be so intimately familiar with. To have your body violated and taken apart to see just how many times it’ll heal, and how quickly.
Ghost knows it better than Soap ever will, better than anyone could ever imagine. He guides Soap through it without ever making it feel like recovery, until Soap wakes up gasping and can be gentled by a soothing rumble instead of C4.
He’s still not okay, and he won’t be for a long time, but he’s healing, and that’s a start.
***
Gaz:
When he was six years old, Gaz’s Nana attempted to teach him how to knit. He didn’t have the patience for it back then — he was a hyper child, always moving and exploring, never able to sit still long enough for tedious lessons to stick. A wandering soul, she always called him affectionately, and she never minded the way he’d tap any surface he was close to. The way he’d make random sounds, pop his lips, take things apart while he was zoned out and then struggle to piece them back together again.
Gaz didn’t have the patience to learn until he was eighteen and freshly enlisted. His last gift to her after she passed, when he saw the needles and a lumpy skein of fleece-soft yarn in a little store and felt his eyes fill with tears. He barely remembered her lessons — had to scour the internet and struggle until it became second-nature. He took that first skein apart over and over again, made scarves and hats and scarves again until it was so old and worn that it fell apart. Realized how quiet his mind became while he was knitting, how everything else fell away and became unimportant.
The first thing he made for someone else was a burgundy scarf for one of his mates in his old spec op team. Gave it to her one Christmas and lied about where it came from, still embarrassed by his hobby because real men don’t knit, that’s a faggot hobby. At least according to a few people who had already figured it out, who teased him relentlessly until he almost stopped entirely, but no. No, he wasn’t going to let them take this from him. It was the only thing he had left from his Nana. The most precious gift she’d ever tried to give him.
So Gaz got better about hiding it. Got better at leaving his gifts for their intended recipients without anyone realizing who they’d come from. Perfected his craft and learned how to make more detailed things — how to make a sweater, to make a blanket. How to make things using different colors and patterns, to blend them into what he wanted.
Price still has the first sweater Gaz gave him; told him he was full of shit when he lied about finding it in a shop. I know what handmade feels like, lad, he said, eyes soft as he rubbed the sleeve between his fingers. The yarn was the closest shade of blue Gaz could find to his new Captain’s eyes, not that he’d ever say that. Every time he saw Price wear it his breath would catch and his eyes would sting. The Captain kept it safe, never wore it anywhere it would get damaged or dirty.
(Gaz would find it the first time he snuck into his lover’s closet to steal something of his to wear. Hanging up in a clothing bag to keep it protected, the cuffs a little tattered and the elbows well-worn. And Gaz would hug it to his chest and cry, would still be like that when Price would come back, because that sweater was his first love letter to his Captain well before Gaz ever knew it.)
Giving Ghost the gloves was infinitely more terrifying. He’d spent weeks trying to get them just right, to replicate the bones on the fingers. Had nearly cried and given up easily a dozen times before he made a pair that he was happy with. They weren’t perfect, but they’d keep Ghost’s hands warm in winter. Even had slits at the tips of the fingers for his claws, so he wouldn’t have to worry about ripping them if he shifted by accident in the field. Gaz wanted to show that he was accepted, even if it was in such a small way.
He never saw his Lieutenant wear them; figured he wasn’t interested or didn’t care, and tried not to let it hurt. Not everyone liked stuff like that, it was fine, at least Ghost had thanked him for them. Had rumbled it, frowning like he wasn’t sure what he was supposed to do with them, but he’d taken them. So Gaz had counted as a win and moved on.
(Wouldn’t learn until a long while later that Ghost wore them constantly. While filling out reports, while supervising recruits, while reading alone in his room. Places where there was no risk, no possible way for him to destroy something so precious.)
Gaz still knits; is trying to teach Soap now, since the Shifter seems interested in learning. Remembers how patient his Nana was with him, even with his twitching and jittering, and makes sure to be just as patient with his packmate. It’s worth the effort, after all — he knows that better than anyone.
***
Price:
People assume his only coping mechanisms are cigars and brandy, and that’s fine with him. What John does in his spare time is no one’s business unless he decides to share it with them. The only one who knows is Soap, because he’d asked the lad about mediums. The best paint to use for a brighter final piece, how to prepare a canvas, what brushes to use to achieve the look he was going for.
Soap had taken it in stride, had showed him Bob Ross tutorials after admitting he was out of his element, and John had studied them like they were a weapons manual. Had watched them for weeks before ever going out and buying supplies, just to make sure it wasn’t a whim. And maybe he’s too old to get into painting, but maybe he isn’t. He’s certainly not getting any younger, and he enjoys creativity. Always finds himself craning his head to see what Soap is sketching, watching an image come to life in a series of messy strokes and precise lines.
Wonders if it’s as soothing as it looks.
His first painting is… awful. Too much paint on the brushes, too much liquid white on the canvas. John sighs and leaves it to dry; goes back to a tutorial and decides to follow it from start to finish. His end piece looks like a zoomed-in version of what Bob Ross has, his mountains more lumpy than peaked and his trees crooked blotches, but it’s… better.
Rome wasn’t built in a day.
John finds that he enjoys the process of failure almost as much as success, because he can see where he went wrong and correct it next time. It becomes therapeutic for him, the hours he’ll spend on the most minute details. The way they’ll add something to the finished piece even when they themselves are lost in the bigger picture. They’re just as important as any other step, and he finds peace in those tiny additions.
There’s a painting hanging in his office now — the view of a valley from the cliffs. An open field that looked like it had been carved into the earth by a giant hand, cradled by mountains like a Bob Ross painting, purple-gray with snowy caps and tiny crevices you can’t see unless you get close enough. John doesn’t remember what country he was in when he saw the valley; can’t even be sure that’s what it looks like exactly, but he did his best to recreate it from memory alone. It took him thirty hours over the course of four months, and once he was finished, he hung it where he’d always be able to look at it. To know that hands accustomed to violence and war are capable of that kind of patience, that degree of care, if given the chance.
A reminder that you’re never too old to learn something new about yourself.
****
Ghost:
Simon is a stress baker. It’s his most closely-guarded secret — not because he’s ashamed, but because what he chooses to do to calm himself after a nightmare is his own business. No one on base ever complains about waking up to fresh bread, or muffins. No one says a word about the chilled pies, the meringues, the dozens upon dozens of cookies, never less than four flavors so there’s a little something for everyone.
He’d like to say he learned from his mother, a grandmother, an aunt, but the truth is, he’s self-taught. Needed a healthier coping mechanism than disappearing into the wilds, full-dark and no-contact, only to emerge after spilling a river of blood across innocent soil. He’ll still do that, when the Ghost gets too close to the surface. Hasn’t yet healed enough to stop seeing Roba or Vernon every time he looks at his enemies, and when nothing else works, violence always will.
He’s learning to be softer now, has had his boy to teach him, and Simon is very aware that it is a learned behavior. It doesn’t come easy for him, and probably never will, but there’s only so much you can do when you were reared on violence. It will always be a part of him; it’s just stopped being the only part.
So Simon bakes. Lets his mind find quiet in the act of measuring ingredients, in creating something rather than destroying it. He’s never been a man to scoff at what works. Has never assumed he couldn’t do something just because society wouldn’t approve — if that were the case, he’d have locked himself in a box to spare the world long before he ever joined the military. No, this is by far the better alternative.
Johnny is his personal salvation, and Simon can admit that there’s nothing better to him than watching him eat what Simon has baked. The way his boy is too impatient to wait for anything to cool when he follows him into the kitchen and keeps him company through the process. He’s tried scolding, tried smacking his boy’s hands to keep him from hurting himself unnecessarily on the pans that have just come out of the oven, but Johnny is a stubborn little shit. And it’s not as if the burns don’t heal within a few minutes. All Simon can do at that point is shake his head and press up against his feral, perfect mate while he’s doing his best to shove an entire cranberry muffin down his throat.
“Mo bhuanchara,” his little Alpha rumbles through his mouthful, leaning back against him. He tilts his head for Simon to nip at the bond mark on his shoulder through his clothes; shudders and sighs and melts further into him, his scent blooming with everything Simon has never deserved but is too greedy to deny himself.
“How copy, Johnny?” he asks lazily, guiding his boy by his jaw and licking the flavors out of his mouth until Johnny’s whines turn shaky, until he’s giving Simon everything without a care for who might stumble across them.
“Solid copy, Alpha,” he murmurs, sweet and content, and Simon has never heard a more satisfying sound.
***
Laswell:
Kate can’t help but wonder sometimes if the boys realize how much she cares about them. She used to try and stay aloof, to keep a professional distance, but they made it incredibly difficult. John was always going to win that fight — there’s too much history there. Too many years of friendship forged in fire and grit. They’ve seen the worst sides of each other and kept them safe from outside dangers; there’s no keeping things separated after that. But the boys… she really did try. They just weren’t all that interested in letting her.
Gaz is no better than John — he’s too earnest and sweet beneath the soldier, riles her protective instincts in a way she didn’t think anyone else could. He’s just about half her age, and as far as Kate is concerned, that makes him her son. Soap too, and Rudy. Alejandro. Even Ghost. Especially Simon, now that he’s been softened by Soap and the rest of his puppies. Each time John adopted one of them into the fold, Kate did too. They’re her puppies now, just as much as they’re his.
Puppies. Imagine. She used to smoke because she thought it made her look tougher, like she could handle herself in the Boys’ Club. Now she smokes because she’s stressed. She’s picked up running again because it empties her mind. Because if she doesn’t do something, then every time she gets one of those calls, she’ll break apart. Almost did, when she heard about what happened to her boys in Al Mazrah. How they damn near lost König so soon after saving him; how they almost lost Gaz again. Her wife had come home to her drunk and sobbing in bed — had wrapped her up in their favorite blanket and held her all night. Booked the flight while she was asleep and sent her off the next day, because she knew Kate wouldn’t relax until she saw for herself that Gaz was alive. That he’d be okay.
Her boys don’t know it yet, but Kate had put in the order for the facility they’d been heading for to be leveled after she’d left the hospital. Had felt no real mercy or remorse for everyone trapped inside, because there’s no sense in having pity for heartless men. They had tried to take something precious from her — it only seemed fitting to take everything from them in return.
Tracking the missile had been harder; had uncovered a web that was bigger than any of them could have realized. She hasn’t told John about that part yet, and she’s not going to. Not yet. Not until her human boys are as safe as she can possibly make them. It’s too dangerous for Gaz and Price to run with Shifters without extra measures of protection. She intends to rectify that.
The next time someone comes for her pack — because there will be a next time, there always is — they’ll be ready. Kate will make sure of that, because she’s a planner. No stone left unturned, no man left to hide or slip away. Shepherd had once called Graves a dog with a bone, and maybe he had been, but it hadn’t mattered in the end. Not to Kate, and not to 141.
Lone dogs don’t stand a chance against a pack of wolves, after all. And men cannot hope to win against Shifters, not when they’ve got something they’re willing to die to protect. Not when they can face down a missile blast and come out on the other side hungry for vengeance. Kate won’t need to hold their leashes, not this time. All she’ll have to do is point them in the right direction and watch her boys do what they do best.