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You trudged through the hallway on your way back from a solo mission. It wasn’t a horrible mission, it went really well in fact. You were just fucking exhausted, eyes drooping, feet dragging, shoulder slumping exhausted. You were ready to get out of the grody clothes, into the shower, and pass out.
Once you had made it to the showers, using as close to boiling water as you could have, you scrubbed the dirt, smell, and residing adrenaline from your skin. When you stepped out you put on lotion (you weren’t going to be a heathen with dry skin) and put on your most comfortable set of sweats and a loose shirt. The residing warmth in your skin nearly lulls you to sleep just standing there in the locker room.
The mess hall hadn’t opened quite yet and there was no telling if you would be able to stay awake long enough to even be first in line. You had decided to forgo the mess hall altogether this afternoon, foretelling that the conversations around you would be too loud for your taste. Sometimes it wasn’t terrible, but you really did have a tendency to let your anxiety and aversions lead you in life. Besides, you really couldn’t stand the idea of having to sit alone once again.
It felt as if no matter how long you were going to be part of the 141 the guys would never get as close to you as they would each other. You would be lying if you said it didn't bother you, of course, you want to be liked by your team, but you were just absolute shit about starting a conversation and meeting new people.
“Thank you once again stupid fucking anxiousness” you chastise your brain for being the way that it is. It has its perks, you have some of the best intuition about people and situations (you never did like that ‘Graves’ guy) it was just at times like this that you wished you could just turn it off. But hey, it had created quite the talent in you to never be late to anything. Ever.
Swinging the door to your room open, as soon as your eyes locked with your bed it was as if you could hear a choir of angels descending, singing a beautiful song of your victory. Your prize? Glorious, glorious sleep. Completely disregarding the fact that it was still light out you crawled into the thin, but soft sheets and yawn. The weight of the day draped like a blanket over you, no thoughts in your mind as you were lulled to sleep.
Knocking is what woke you up, it very well could have been soft knocking but to you it sounded like banging. You shoot up, wide-eyed, and nearly trip over yourself getting off the bed to rush the door. Yanking the door open with your eyes filled with bewilderment and panic. You see the figure in front of you jump at the sudden movement, he looks at you and an apologetic look washes over his face.
“Ah, shite did I wake you? I'm sorry dude." A sheepish smile washes over the face of the man in front of you. It takes a second for you to fully be able to process who the hell is standing in front of you. About 20 seconds of dead silence hung in the air, anxiety rattling in your ribs. You attempt to ground yourself with a breathing exercise you had learned somewhere on the internet.
'Five things I can see. Fuck.. The door frame. Soap. Soap's mohawk. Soap's eyes. Soap’s -.'
Realizing that he was all you were thinking about you shook your head and forcibly snapped yourself out of whatever trance you were in.
"Huh?"
You sounded like an idiot. In all honesty, it is the only thing you could muster without your voice cracking. The team already thought you were young, no need in giving them even more incentive to pick on you about it. Soap chuckled at you again and apologized once more.
"Ah… I wanted to invite you to a movie night we are having, the other guys will be there.. in the common room." He hesitated over a couple of his words giving room for suspicion on your end. As if he could sense your trepidation he clarifies his reasoning.
"I just had figured you would want a way to unwind after your solo mission today... but I'm now realizing.. that you may have just wanted... uh to sleep."
He releases an airy, awkward laugh, scratching at the back of his neck. He locked eyes with you watching as you deliberated your response. You had never actually been “invited” to one of their movie nights, only ever seeing them in the common room on your way back from the mess hall. Thinking about it made your pulse skyrocket, they wanted to hang out with you now? What has changed?
“I… uhm sure… that uh.. sounds fun.”
Your face did not reflect your words, and your words did not match your internal emotions. You were excited but you were also very nervous, you began to go over the positive things before you were able to fall too deep into the negatives of your own mind. It would be good, a bonding experience with the group, and you would be able to relax then. Forcing a smile on your face to hopefully aid in the portrayal of the feeling of excitement instead of fear, but you probably just looked like you had to shit… honestly. He perked up immensely once hearing your answer and clapped a hand on your shoulder.
“Great! Well we already decided what movie we are going to watch, hope you like Rango.. but we start at 8 okay?”
You nodded fervently, not able to trust your voice once again, and cracked your knuckles together in a habitual nervous tic.
“Good good! We will see you then! Don't be late.” With a sharp smile and a wink, he lifted his hand and spun on his heel to leave.
“And wear somethin’ comfy!” He shouted with one last word over his shoulder.
You snake your way back into the room fully and shut your door. When your hand leaves the handle you then notice a slight tremor in your hands. Taking breaths to stabilize yourself, you look at the clock hoping that you would have time to mentally prepare for interaction with the people you had assumed did not want to get to know you. 6:30. Great, you had only a little less than an hour of sleep. You knew you would be fine, and with an hour and a half until 8:00, perfect… that's three segments of 30 minutes before you had to be there.
Well maybe getting time to know your way around the common room could take a little bit of time. You mentally scratch off 15 minutes, to be able to get comfortable in the common room in your plan. And you had figured if you walked at your normal pace it would take you less than five minutes to get to the common room, so naturally you give yourself those 5 minutes for it. Realizing to yourself that you now have 20 minutes marked off for preparation, now you only have an hour and ten minutes by yourself.
You couldn’t stand being in your room any longer, all you were doing was sitting and overthinking, and it started to suffocate you. So you left. You grabbed a hoodie from your room and left for the common room. It was only 7:15. When you had gotten to the common room you noticed things were a little out of place compared to how it normally is. Choosing to sit on the couch you sat on the center cushion and put your hoodie on, the silence becoming deafening. You pulled out your phone and decided it would be a good time to check emails and messages that you had received. That had lasted a whole two minutes. 7:17. You really had nothing better to do, so you found one of the little push games on your phone and tried to distract yourself from the one question that had been looming over you since the Scotsman had asked you to join them
“What if this is a fucking prank?”
You hated that thought; you wished your brain wasn’t that untrusting of people you had known for nearly 6 months now, but it just came naturally to you. You so desperately wanted to get along with them, to be able to share some of their inside jokes, to be as close to them as they are to each other. Mindlessly tapping at your phone did nothing to help those thoughts that were digging their way into your brain. When you finally are able to look at the time on your phone, you were less than pleased with what you found. 7:46. The universe had to be fucking with you, sure 30 minutes was a decent amount of time, but not a good thing for the newfound anxieties coursing through your veins.
'Where were the others?'
As a rule of thumb you typically showed up to a place 15 - 20 minutes early depending on the event, just to get situated and know what the vibe of the room felt like. There was no way for you to know how Soap, Ghost, or even Gaz liked to partition their time. It was nothing new for you to be the first one to arrive at any kind of event.
However, when you had read 7:58 on the lock screen of your phone and no one had shown up yet, you had begun to panic. The thoughts of them pulling a cruel prank on you began to boil over in you. A pit formed in your stomach, and you hug yourself in reassurance, was it beginning to get hotter in the common room. Or was it just you? As soon as the clock hit 8 pm you fought the frown that had begun to form on your face with a sharp bite to your lip. You were not going to cry over this. And so you sat and waited for the gang to arrive.
And you waited
And waited. For what felt like an eternity.
You flip your phone over and the screen lit up. Completely dumbfounded at the time that currently read on the screen. 8:09. You wanted to go back to your room, but you also wanted to give into their little game and finally just look for them. Then you heard a door opening and closing and finally heard their voices. Tears welled in your eyes as you heard them laughing. Were they laughing at you? You scrubbed your face with the sleeves of your hoodie before anyone could see your weakness.
“Oh hey! Looks like you beat us!” You hear Soap gruffly laugh out, and when you looked over you spotted Gaz, Price, Ghost, and Soap just having come through the doorway. They had looked at you with a small amount of confusion and concern in their eyes. Soap caught your eye and silently asked what was wrong, so you looked away. God, you must have looked like a kicked puppy if they knew that something was wrong from just one quick look. When you refused to answer Soap asked aloud,
“What’s the matter, dude? You alright?”
That is when you had realized your mistake. They had just been late. That was all. You had no reason to be fussing over something so small, so menial, it was only ten fucking minutes. You hummed a confirmation and nodded your head. Once again forcing a terrible smile you stated,
“Just excited for the movie.” A pause filled the room for about 8 seconds after and you shuffled slightly in your seat.
“You're absolute shit at lying.” Partially taken aback you turn your head to the sound of the voice. Price had stepped forward and the team had their eyes on him. You locked eyes with him and said in the most uncertain tone,
“I’m sorry?”
"Apology accepted. I won't knock you for it, just remind me to teach you about avoiding interrogation later." he chuckled at his stupid joke. Your eyes roam over to the three others both Gaz and Soap are looking at their Captain, but Ghost is staring a hole into your head. You swore that man secretly had laser vision and just never told anyone.
"Well, are you going to tell us what's the matter or are we going to have to use the American's way of interrogating?” He laughed again in an attempt to keep the conversation as light as he could, but it didn't affect the tension in the room. If anything it made it more awkward. Gaz made a face that would have made you laugh if your mood hadn't been completely soiled. At least Soap had laughed for you. Gnawing on your lip once more, you take a breath, there was no use in hiding this, if they could tell you were bothered it was dumb to hold it in. You opened your mouth, still trying to gather your thoughts on how to correctly word how you were feeling. It was a dumb thing, they would surely scoff at you.
“Kid, you can take your time okay? And if you want us to get outta yer face we can.”
“I thought you guys weren’t going to show up.” You say with a heavy heart, the tone in your voice laced with the fear of rejection. “Soap said to be here at 8 and I’ve been sitting here since like 7:15 and when you guys weren’t showing up I thought that it was you guy’s way of saying that you didn't like me and didn’t really want me here-”
“What?! How come wid ye ever think that?!” You jump at the quick Scottish shout that comes from Soap. The question forces you to think about the days you were left out of things as a kid and such. The thoughts are all fleeting but they still had managed to crawl their way out a little. Cracking your knuckles, you cast your eyes away from them. “I don’t know,” pausing you look back with an ashamed look shadowing over your face “I just have a lot of anxiety about that kinda stuff I guess… early is on time, and on time is late ya’ know? No matter what the situation is, it's kinda stupid.”
While you let your words hang in the air you take an abnormally large breath and run your hands over your face, then through your hair. Tiredness washing over you, your eyes drooping ever so slightly you realize how little sleep you were running on at this point.
“It's not stupid to have anxiety about stuff like that,” a deep, gruff voice rang through the room, “it's completely normal for someone to be liked by their peers.” There was no need to even look over at him because you could feel his eyes through his mask on your head.
“Yea, it literally pack mentality, it's kinda like a survival instinct. It's nature.” Gaz butts in and that's when you look over. ‘Pack mentality. Interesting take on it,’ you thought to yourself ‘does this mean we’re… a pack?’ your face scrunches up involuntarily as you try not to make it weird in your head. The four of them chuckle at something you didn't hear, so you shoot them all a quizzical look. Soap smiles at you and shakes his head. He walks over to where you are sitting on the couch and the others follow. Soap sits on your left and Ghost sits on your right, Gaz claims the chair and Price snatches a pillow from the seat to use on the floor. You offer your seat to Price, but he declines with a quick and adamant.
“No, thank you. Those idiots take up too much space and mohawk over there likes to cuddle during movies.”
You thought he was joking until a quarter of the way through the movie, you began to doze off and you felt yourself being pulled from the right to the left. You open your eyes, not even have realized you had closed them, and watch as Soap pulls you into his side with his arm. ‘This motherfucker’ you thought to yourself. You could feel the heat rise to the back of your neck and your ears burn. You had stiffened at the touch and looked up at him with a face that said ‘really?’ He simply smiled at you and leaned towards your ear, whispering “Just like a pack?” Your eyes widen at the very delayed information, that you had asked if the group was a pack.. out.. loud.
You half-heartedly shoved him away and attempted to scoot over closer to Ghost but the arm around your shoulders locks you in. He just chuckles at your feeble attempts and continues watching the movie. You continue to stare for just a few lingering moments and turn back to the movie as well, the warmth from him that cloaked you begged you to sleep right there. You didn't need to watch the movie anyway, just being there was what you had craved.