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The wind was blowing coldly over your heads. The trees danced with it, but their dance was a strenuous lament. They were not happy to be moved in such a way and neither were you by being under them.
It was cold, the ground under you was colder and harder than any surface you have ever been and you didn’t really get how the others could be sleeping like nothing. Maybe it had to do with the fact that they were exhausted or that there was no time like the present and in the present, they needed to sleep.
The reality was that you didn’t have a choice. You didn’t get to choose the mission or the destination or the horrors, you only did what you were told successfully and endure the rest of it. What was Price said once? Oh yeah, something about you getting dirty so the world could say clean.
Turns out the world had never been clean in the first place. It has been bleeding since the first human came into existence, and by the year, more blood is spilled into the soil. It was almost like the world was laughing at you all.
Sighing you try to stop going to places and get to sleep. Being all night in the outdoors was not ideal, but you needed to suck it up cause you in, theory, had signed up for this. It was part of the sacrifices.
You tighten your arms around your form and close your eyes again. It was pathetic, trying to stay warm this way, but there wasn’t anything you could do. The others didn’t look bothered and you weren’t going to disturb anyone’s sleep cause you couldn’t be strong for once.
How the others were sleeping so easily was beyond you. Maybe it was because they had been soldiers far more time than you or maybe it was because it was not the first time. Whatever it was, you wanted some, especially from Soap who had been sleeping and snoring since Price gave the order, almost like he was back in his bed at base. Roach was the same, except that he was quiet and was curled up close to Soap for warmth.
Price was nicely sleeping, with his arms crossed over his chest, pretending Gaz wasn’t closer than normal hugging his backpack like you have seen him hugging his pillow at base. It will have been comical and maybe cute how grown-up men were sleeping, but you were fighting the cold, and the closest squad member to you was not your favorite, so you really needed to get back to sleep.
You haven’t guessed what possessed him to lay down close to you. Ghost and you had never seen eye to eye for important things. He always found fouls in your plans, he always liked to torture you on drills and pull rank when you had to do something you didn’t want. He was infuriating and he enjoyed it, mostly because you had never been good at hiding your emotions; you always had a face for whenever he sent you to do things you didn’t want to.
And yet, when you complained about the cold under your breath after Price told everyone they were going to rest right there and then, he sat down close to you and then laid down to sleep like the rest of the squad.
It made you think of Soap and the times he assured you that Ghost didn’t have anything against you and that he hated everyone equally. But also made you feel suspicious. Yet you couldn’t complain much, his size and closeness provide some certain amount of warmth, even if it was pretty nonexistent.
You sighed again, annoyed. You were not going to get any sleep, and that will win you a scolding in the morning and God forbid from getting a Price speech that early.
Your heart almost stops beating, however, when someone moves behind you. You stay still like a log and try to pretend you are sleeping, you even hold your breath, but then you hear his voice, raspy and as annoyed as you were feeling.
“'Top movin’”, you don’t answer, trying to play dumb. “I ‘now yar awake”.
You let go the breath that you were holding.
“Go back to sleep, Lt”, you say, trying to play it off.
He shifts behind you and if you had eyes on your back, you’ve probably be able to see him putting the knife away, because, of course, Ghost slept with a knife in his hand.
“Why aren’t ya sleepin’?”
"‘Cause not everyone is a 1.89 mass of muscle who can keep itself warm”, you whisper, even if annoyance was taking the best of you.
He doesn’t answer, which almost gives you a sense of victory.
“That doesn’t have anything to do with it”.
“Just go to sleep”, and your tone is final, and you make it known by rearranging your backpack, which you were using as a pillow.
He doesn’t talk again and for the minutes that follow you think you have won until he decided to say something.
“Ya cold”, it wasn’t a question.
“It took you all that time to realize it?”, sarcasm was your usual with him.
He makes a noise, but you don’t know what it actually means. You just know that you are cold and he is annoying you.
“Why ya didn’t say anything?”
“What were you going to do about it?”
And that’s when you actually think he got tired of you and will finally shut up, yet, to your surprise again, you hear him move in the ground, and then something, warm and big grabs you by your vest.
“Wha-?!”, yet before you could make a scandal out of it that will wake up the team, he turns you around so you can face him.
He makes a shush sign and you are taken aback for a moment or two by his mask. Even if it was dark, even if you see it daily.
“Not a word”, and then, while you are still trying to understand what the hell he is doing, he moves a few more times, and then the two of you lay down on the ground again.
And is not until you feel a rush of warmth bathing you – more like drowning you – that you understand what the hell just happened.
He was cuddling you.
He had you in his arms.
You were in Ghost’s arms.
What the actual fuck?
You didn’t even know he was capable of such…human interaction.
You take a breath, to talk, to question this act even if it was to your benefit, but he sees it through the air.
“Not a word”, he reminds you and you close your mouth.
You don’t know what to do, so you do nothing.
The silence is eternal and so tense you could cut it with one of the many knives on his person.
Yet your erratic heart calms down and your muscles warm up enough and, before you know it, you are blinking heavily and then you aren’t blinking anymore.
You dreamed of a bear sleeping in the common room at the base, a bear who refused to have human connections.
In the morning, you wake up curled on the ground, your backpack as a pillow, drooling. Soap kicks you to wake you up and when you return to the land of the living, is to realize that you are alone.
There is no one beside you.
Did you dream it all?
Why the fuck will you dream something with someone you found so annoying?
“On yar feet, Sleeping Beauty”, you mumble a curse to a smiling Soap.
Is not until you are on your feet, getting your drool off your face that you realize that Ghost is standing not so far from Price. They are discussing something, and he looks as annoying as always.
Your heart skips a beat and some words from last night come to your head.
“Not a word”.
Yes, of course, not a word. This could ruin his whole dark, tall and brooding reputation.
But then you two make eye contact and there is something different about him and about you.
“Not a word”.
And it sounds like a promise.
And it sounds like the start of something too.