Chapter Text
"Bravo six, this is Hayseed, requesting permission for live fire!"
This mission could not have gone more wrong. It was recon, nothing more, you were just supposed to get in, find some papers and get out, no casualties. That being said, you'd always fucking sucked at quiet missions and now you were held up behind a wall waiting for Price to give you permission to fire back against the assholes shooting at you.
"Copy Hayseed, this is Bravo six, permission for live fire granted- how'd you screw this one up, son?" You could almost hear the humour in his voice and in that moment, it really only made you want to clock him one, even as you pushed yourself out of cover to return fire. This is where your speciality came in handy. Sure, you were shit undercover but even the guys of 141 knew better than to question your aim.
It took less than five minutes for you to clear the swarm of men trying to cross you off a, probably, long list of people that wanted to fuck them over and you made sure to leave Price hanging on the other end of the comms until it's done.
"Sir?"
"Copy, Hayseed." His voice was a little quieter now and you wondered if, for a moment, you had him worried there, your silence on the comm making his old heart wither a second.
"Update Kill count by twenty-seven, please."
"You cheeky bastard, Hayseed, you ready for exfil?"
"Nah, boss, thinking of sticking around and clearing the reinforcements when they get here." You were sure that he was rolling his eyes just from the sarcasm dripping off your voice, and for a moment, you considered leaving it at that, before you remembered that transcripts tended to leave the comedy out of phrases like that.
"Hayseed, requesting Exfil."
"Exfil at Eighteen Thirty, retreat to a safe distance and get some rest."
The walk from the compound to the nearest 'safe distance' was too damn long but you had orders to follow, so with your weapon secured to your back and what little adrenaline you had left after running for cover, you started the walk. Something you'd learnt early on during foreign Ops was that 'Safe distance' wasn't really a thing. You could hike for miles or minutes and you'd be just as safe at either point.
Adrenaline is a hell of a thing.
Adrenaline does things like make you forget hiking twenty miles to a designated exfil location. Adrenaline does things like make you do all that before you can realise you even got hit.
You were a far cry from being a combat medic but you'd had the same basic training as every other fucker that signed up to get shot at so- given your training and limited supplies, it was a surprise you managed to stop the sluggish bleeding from just under your collarbone.
You didn't bother to dig the bullet out, didn't bother to cauterize the wound or even sew it up. Medics could do that when you were back to base, for the time being you just packed it with the little gauze you'd packed and slapped some duct tape over it. Should be enough to keep the blood in until back at base camp.
Exfil was a heli and that was only a little surprising to you, not because you'd expected something else but because Captain Price was in the Heli waiting for you when you jumped in.
"You okay?" His voice is low and gravelly as you remember it and you wonder for a moment why he bothered to ask before you realise that you're swaying like wheat in low wind. Your hand moved slower than your body really clocked that it would and you gripped a crossbeam in to stop yourself from faceplanting into your superior's boots. The polish was probably still damp.
"Been Better, boss." Your voice sounds tired and weak to your own ears and you're sure you feel his hands moving you, guiding you to sit and making sure you were secure.
"Were you hit?"
"Yea." You can't even get your lead-heavy tongue to lift into an 'S' to make it any more professional, your eyelids are barely managing to stay up themselves and you think for a moment that Ghost would probably tape them open to make sure he could stay on the job.
You, however, have neither the tape nor the arm strength.
You're not entirely sure when you passed out, or how long you were unconscious, only that when you wake up, you're back at base, laid in an infirmary bed with way too many tubes attached to you. One of which was shoved so far down your throat that you were starting to doubt your blowjob capability as you gagged around it.
It came out with a tug and your throat was so fucking sore that you considered filleting whoever intubated you, simply so they could know the pain.
Now that you could breathe without gagging on the plastic monstrosity, you catalogued yourself. Your shoulder and chest killed and your head was fuzzy, light. You'd been drained before, you could recognise blood loss when you weren't in the field and high on adrenaline.
Most of the machines you were connected to, you realised, could be unplugged and you wasted no time pulling the plug for the heart monitor, eyeing the bag of blood where it hung on the IV stand next to at least two other bags of liquids. You really had almost died. That's another Near-Death-Experience you could add to the tally.
Standing up was an experience.
Your feet hit the floor and it took you a minute to realise that it was cold- and by the time that had registered, the fact that you were falling back onto your ass also clocked, as did the fact that you were wearing- not a gown, as you'd expected- but your pyjamas, the ones you normally wore. Someone had gone into your bunk, pulled your PJs and gotten you dressed in them.
You didn't know whether to be touched or violated by that.
The IV was surprisingly heavy to push as you moved from the Infirmary, pushing the stand up for a moment to get it over the little lip in the doorway. It didn't occur to you that that lip was there so patients like you didn't run around the base.
It must have been the next day because the lights were on and there was noise coming from the rec room- a little living area that the boys had decked out as best they could to make themselves feel at home. A foosball table, a tv, and a little vending machine that always stuck when you tried to get a bloody Mars bar*. You couldn't count the number of times that you had almost busted your knuckles, punching that fucking thing.
The Rec room door swung open easy and you let yourself in. There was a moment when no one seemed to realise that you'd entered, or that you'd slumped down heavily into the plush armchair in the corner of the room.
And then there was silence.
Complete and haunting silence as every pair of eyes turned to you, and you offered Soap a little smile when you saw him look at you like he'd seen a ghost- Ghost himself was as unreadable as he normally was, though his head had cocked to the side, his hands paused on the blade and whetstone he was working.
Gaz's hands fell from the Foosball table where he'd been playing against an equally stunned Roach and he just gaped at you for a long moment- long enough that your only logical thought was to salute the lot of them.
"You're awake?"
"Look it, don't I?"
Soap moved then, leaning a little towards you and running a hand down his face before he could think about the words to say, "How long do you think you've been out, Hays?"
"12, 24?" You offered, figuring hours was a safe bet, given that it was daylight and that you didn't exactly feel like you'd had less than ten hours sleep- parts of you sore that made you think you hadn't rolled over in a good while whilst you were out.
"Two and a half months, Hayseed."
Your turn to be silent.
Two and a half months? You'd been out for that long? And they hadn't shipped you to a civvie hospital or discharged you for inactive service? That seemed a long shot and your face must have twisted like you thought they were fucking with you before Ghost shook his head.
"Price wouldn't let them ship you off."
"Price?" You managed to parrot. You should have stayed in Medbay. You should have waited for a nurse, or for them to come to you because you felt faint and sick and your chest was throbbing from where your heart was no doubt slamming into your ribcage like a wild snake snapping at the glass of its prison.
"Come on- Hey, Hays, just sit down-" Gaz was at your side and you don't remember having stood up but that would definitely explain the nausea that flooded through you and the way your knees felt like half cured Angel Delight, "Sit down, yeah. Roach, get the medic."
"I don't need a fucking medic!" You didn't mean to yell, you don't think. Definitely didn't mean for the tears to start building in your eyes or to fall onto your knees at the base of your IV pole, clinging to it like a lifeline.
You felt derelict.
In every sense of the word. You'd sat in that room, rotting and leaving your team, your Captain, to clean up the mess you'd made. You'd been abandoned to rot in a fucking medbay.
You wondered if they visited you. Sat by your bedside and talked about missions that you should have been on. Talked about things that fucked up because you weren't there to cover your role in the group. Did you have a role anymore-
"Breathe, Hayseed." Ghost's voice is low and gravelly and close. How do they keep getting so close? His hand lands on your shoulder, and you realise that it's just him and Gaz now. Roach and Soap are gone, they've left.
"That's it, Hays, breathe," Gaz assured and your head fell- with a melodic thunk- against the IV pole again, before the Lieutenant and Sergeant hefted you back into your seat. You wondered how much weight you'd lost or gained while you were fucking asleep.
"Can I get the file?" Your tongue felt heavy as you spoke again, your eyes dragging from the floor to Ghost, "The uh- The file on the- The case I was working?"
"Price cut it, Told Shepard to put another team on it 'cause he wasn't gonna lose anyone on the back of crap intel," Gaz answered you and for a moment you thought you might be sick. Might paint the pale blue lino flooring with whatever the hell was left in your stomach.
"Corporal?" Price's voice snapped you out of it and your head moved to look at him in the door so fast you thought your eyes had decided to spin out of your head. When your vision focused he was in front of you, Gaz and Ghost were gone a moment later, clearly moving on some unspoken command to get out. It could have been spoken. You're not sure you would have heard it with the way you could hear your heart pounding in your ears.
"Cap'n."
"You shouldn't be out of bed, Corporal." His voice sounds soft, not the cheeky gruffness you're used to and his eyes, under the rim of that stupid fucking hat, looked concerned, "You lost a lot of blood."
"What happened?"
"The bullet you took nicked the subclavian artery and your patch job was- it wasn't great." He offered and you furrowed your eyebrows a moment. You knew the patch was shit but not 'put you in a coma for half of winter' shit. You weren't surprised when he continued talking.
"They managed to patch you up but your blood level was low enough that they had to do a few emergency transfusions. That levelled you out for about a day before the infection hit." He nodded to the IV and pointed to one of the bags of clear liquid, "They weren't sure the antibiotics would kick it before you did."
You were silent for a moment before you laughed, trying to ignore the ache in your side or the look of surprise on Price's face.
"Sod's law*, innit?" You breathed out and Price choked a laugh for a moment before nodding a little, his hand moving from the arm of the chair, where he'd crouched in front of you, to rest on your leg. You'd never really gotten used to his casual touches with you, but this was something you could look past. It felt like he was reassuring himself that you were there and that you were real, and that, you reasoned, couldn't do you any real harm.
"Guess it is," You expect him to leave the sentence there or to use your callsign at the end but no. Your name. Your legal name, the one your mother looked at you and muttered, that was the one that left his lips and you felt your back tense up to the point where you had to hiss in a breath to avoid some of the pain in your chest.
"Captain?" Your voice was quiet and you realised then, how mice must feel when they're cornered and can do nothing more than stare down the cat.
"Don't worry," His voice is that soft tone again and it feels like honey to trap flies- You're sickenly enamoured with him and he'll be your end- "You're gonna be fine, Hayseed."
His hands were on your waist in a second and you nearly threw your weight back to get away from him- that or melt into him because he is, he is everything you've ever wanted and yet everything, you know- deep down, that you cannot have.
"Let's get you back to the Infirmary, think that Bones can get you all sorted to start recovery." Recovery. You didn't know if you could recover from this. From the mental strain of finding out you'd been in a Coma like that. From the emotional strain of a one-sided love.
The physical strain was the one thing you knew you could take and you did. You walked, by his side, to the infirmary, ignoring when his hand would move to hover over your lower back or when he'd touch you, just to make sure you were alert and aware.
"Hayseed."
"Yes, Captain."
"We can talk about all this-" His hand was moving between yourself and him before he continued, "When you're healthy enough to knock Gaz on his ass again." He assured and you wondered for a moment if you'd ever been able to know Gaz down, or if he was setting an impossible task. A punishment, for your dereliction.
You would become Sisyphus then, though your boulder was a man named 'Kyle' and your hill was your ability to beat the shit out of him.
"I can do that, sir."
"I have no doubt,"
And there it was again. Your name on his lips was as sweet as the smell of Lavender and elderberry bushes in the last spring. You could get used to the sound of it. To the warmth, it brought you as you slipped back into the Infirmary bed. He might be a trap. Might be your demise in a neat package but he'd be the sweetest hell you could ask for.