Work Text:
on leave
day 1 of mission: bring Harper home
20xx
Mason family home, Fairbanks, AK, USA
"Oh my god, I'm fucking freezing," Harper hisses, rubbing his hands together to generate heat. It doesn't really help — the Mason family home is cold without Woods, has been since he moved into the Vault. It was cold for a long time before that, too — without Mason's father. Now, though, the younger Mason has finally let himself back in. He finally has a reason to come home — and someone willing to come with him.
Distantly, the heater in the basement rumbles, old pipes creaking to life. Wind sweeps somewhere, heard vaguely through the chimney. Probably worth checking for a draft later. And nests. God only knows what's gotten in there in the few years it may have gone without maintenance. Outside, the sound of cold rain beating down on them is, at least, a pleasant background hum.
Section just laughs as he ascends from the basement, closing the door behind him. His laugh is one of Harper's favorite sounds, so he doesn't mind too much. He doesn't even mind when Section laughs at him, because it still means he made Section laugh. Sometimes being the fool isn't such a bad thing.
"C'mon, dipshit," David says. "I turned the boiler on, let's go drop our bags upstairs and then we'll get a fire started if you're still cold."
"Ugh, yes please." Harper picks up the suitcases that he'd dropped to warm his hands — he'd made the rookie mistake of assuming he could take off his gloves as soon as they got through the front door — and follows Section up the stairs.
Section points out Woods' old room, which used to be his father's room — "they shared it, for a long time. I think longer than I ever even knew," — he adds in a low voice, as if worried Woods will hear him all the way from the other side of the country, and scold him for prying into his parents' love life. Because it was, it is that. That was what they were — in love, and they were his parents, for better or worse; what looked like a man raising his best friend's kid was also a man mourning his best friend, his lover of almost half their lives. They did love each other, in whatever ways they were allowed. Whatever ways they knew how to get away with.
Harper likes to think he and Section are doing a little better. That their generation has learned from their parents' mistakes. He's not sure how true that is, but it's something to keep aiming for regardless.
He doesn't ask, at least not with words, if they'll be sharing one bedroom. Sharing Section’s bedroom. He's been hoping for it, maybe even assuming, if he can be so bold. But he can't know for sure until now, and — if he thinks David is going to usher him to a second room, because David thinks he wants it, out of propriety or some bullshit misplaced sense of politeness towards guests, then he'll ask. He'll intervene.
But he won't ask, not yet.
As usual, Harper's anxious for nothing. He doesn't even have to ask. There's an office and a guest room — "we mostly just store extra blankets and shit in there," Section says offhandedly, not even turning to look at the door as he gestures towards it — and he points out the bathroom as well before making his way into the remaining bedroom.
His bedroom.
The one he grew up in.
Damn.
Harper stands idly in the hallway for a moment, feeling stupid. Watches David toss his bags onto the floor and start unpacking without a pause.
He looks back. raises an eyebrow at Harper. "You coming?"
Harper flushes pink, and Section shakes his head in exaggerated exasperation as he rushes to follow, heart beating double-time in his chest, like it's trying to drag him into the room where his feet are fumbling to follow through.
He drops his own bags next to Section's, and starts peeling off his outer layers, slightly more content with the temperature up here than downstairs, but mostly soothed by the promise of a warm bed and his boyfriend.
Jacket and other accessories removed, Harper keeps on his hoodie but peels off his cargos, leaving only the thermal yoga leggings underneath. His sister has never lied, except about that incident at the ice cream parlor in Old Orchard Beach the one time, and he's going to have to send her a gift basket or something to thank her for tipping him onto these leggings. They're basically just the bottom half of long johns. and they're the comfiest thing in the world except for scrubs, but better, because scrubs are impossible to wear underneath jeans on account of all the damn elastic, and these? Oh, baby, these bad boys can layer with anything.
Section, who has beat him to stripping, is already shaking out the dust (not much) from his bedcovers and climbing beneath. Evidently he was lying when he suggested starting a fire. then again, the hearth in here looks like it needs to be cleaned. Harper saw a bigger one downstairs that looked less...grimy, but that was downstairs, where it was cold(er).
While he's standing there hesitating (again), Section has made himself comfortable in bed. Harper is inclined to think he should be doing the same, but he's struck by that same flash of indecision, the do I really belong here am I overstepping does he want me in his life like this flickering angrily through his mind's eye. Screen burn that won't let up from the monitor through which he sees the world.
Section, lying on his back, rolls onto one side and picks up a corner of his blankets, an obvious offer.
It's the easiest thing in the world to accept, scrambling up onto the bed and clambering underneath, wrapping himself around Section. And gods, does it feel like coming home. like every single fucking jigsaw piece in his puzzle of an emotional primordial soup of a brain slotting into place at once. Like striking a bullseye from thirty meters away at the archery range.
He groans in complete, total satisfaction. He's exhausted, it was a long flight and another connecting flight and a drive that felt even longer than either of those two just to get here, but he did all of that shit with Section because he'd asked, and honestly, Harper had been waiting for him to ask for a while. He's wanted this. He's wanted Section to want this. This is exactly what he's been needing for...forever, honestly. For a really fucking long time.
Section's hands push up his sleeves to find his bare arms, running up and down the skin and making gooseflesh raise over his tattoo sleeve as he traces the patterns there. He knows the layout of Harper's ink well enough to find each detail by touch alone, without looking, in almost-complete darkness. It's the little things like this that Harper holds onto — to remind himself, when he really needs it, that he's not making all of this up in his head. David really does care for him in something like the same way he cares for David. The kind of way that sometimes feels like it'll break you open.
Harper nestles into the curve formed by Section lying on his side, head in the crook of his neck, nuzzling into his chest as Section's arms come to wrap around his middle. One hand settles on his back, rubbing soothing circles through his shirt.
"Hey," Section says, mildly affronted, mostly teasing. Harper regretfully lifts his chin from David's pecs to let out a soft noise of questioning, and finds David smiling softly at him. "You're wearing my hoodie."
"Mmmmghh." Harper sets his head back down on David's chest. He's too tired for full sentences when he’s speaking muffled into 200 pounds of warm, comfy boyfriend. He's staying right here until he's dragged from this position. "Had it on the whole flight 'n' you didn't say anything. Was sleeping on your shoulder 'n' everything."
"Really?" Section teases.
"Mmhm. 'M not taking it off. Smells like you. S'nice."
David ruffles his hair briefly, before his hand slides back down Harper's neck to his back. His other hand is still tracing the patterns of Mike's tattoos, fidgeting up and down his arm.
I love you, Harper thinks, desperately.
"Good," Section says. "I wasn't planning on asking you to. But don't even think about chopping the sleeves off."
Harper gasps, all faux horror. "I would never," he says mildly, both of them laughing. "If you gave me one of your t-shirts, though..."
"Harper!"
His raucous laughter bounces off the walls off the tiny room, louder than the rain outside for a moment. He buries his head in David's collar, nuzzling in beside his dog tags, hiding a smile against his skin. He lets his fingers trace over the familiar letters. Two of the dog tags are David's own. The third is his father's — or one of them, anyway. While it's traditional for one to remain with the body for identification, and the other to be taken back home — given to the family, eventually, in many cases — both met that fate; Woods has the other.
"If I gave you one of my hoodies, would you wear it?" he asks, perfectly innocent.
Section's hand pauses on his arm, tapping over each little inked dot in a row. "Of course." He dips his head to kiss Harper's forehead. "I'd wear it every day until I have to wash it, and then I'd make you wear it again so it still smells like you."
Harper can't help the quiet whine he lets out, a half-strangled noise escaping his mouth at the way the idea affects him.
"Yeah," David adds after a moment, voice low with the admission, "I'd probably sleep in it too. You know, when I don't have you around." He squeezes Harper's bicep.
"You miss me that bad when I'm gone?"
The resulting sigh is heavy enough to jostle Harper, curled up against David's chest as he is. "Man, if you knew."
If Harper were a little less confident in the gravity of their relationship, still, that admission might've felt something like a spear piercing his heart. As it is, it still stabs clean through him, another reminder that they're in this together. The emotion in David's voice...he could live off of it, like oxygen.
Harper presses in closer, tangling their ankles together, worming one arm under Section's side to slide his hand up under the other man's shirt, feeling the warmth and solidity of his skin underneath.
"Tell me," he says, insistently. His other hand fumbles up David's chest to cup his cheek.
"It's not like I can't get any sleep without you — "
"Nothing discharge-worthy, eh?"
"Hah, sure — but...man, it's a lot easier. This. I dunno how I ever did it on my own for as long as I did."
"Hey, it ain't trivial. Humans need to be touched, everybody needs company. You're no super SEAL and neither am I."
Section turns his face into Harper's hand, kissing his palm. Heart line. Life line. Each finger, one at a time. The webbed skin between index and thumb. "I'm really glad I have you, Harper. I gotta tell you that more often."
Harper chuckles. "Sappy ass. Don't worry, I know you love me. I wouldn't say no to you using your words a little more, though."
"I do!" he protests, or rather affirms. "I love you, I mean."
"I love ya too, idiot." Harper picks his head up again to press a sloppy kiss to David's jaw, for good measure. "and I'm glad I have you too. you and your shirts, obviously."
"Anything for my favorite SEAL, y'know?"
"Hmm?" Harper isn't sure where he's going with this one, but he knows that mischievous glimmer in David's eyes.
Section gives him a lopsided grin. "My harp seal."
Ah. There it is.
Harper kicks his legs under the blanket, flailing a little. "Shutupshutup" he wheezes, face heating up. He's not cute, not like a baby animal!
"My little harp seal..." David croons at him, littering the top of his head with tiny kisses.
Fine, fine, fine — two can play that game.
"Daaaaaavid. Dave. Daveeeeeeeey."
Section blinks at him, and blinks again, eyes two wide dark pools, face flushing at the string of non-codenames. The nicknames are startlingly intimate, but somehow, David is already the most personal of all, out of Harper's mouth. Somehow, it feels entirely different from his codename.
"Section," he tries.
"No," Mason rasps. "My name. Say it again."
"David," he breathes, and then the rest of his breath is stolen straight from his mouth by the man in question, lurching forward to tug him into a kiss.
They roll on the bed, tangling themselves beyond measure within the blankets, both of them giggling against each other's mouths all the while. Their little cocoon is warm and cozy, and there's nothing outside of this room, nothing but the rain and the bed and the world narrowed down to the two of them nestled together, wandering hands and familiar touches.
Harper gets his hands in David's hair and at that point there's no way he's ever moving them, Section already has ridiculously soft hair to begin with so it feels incredible anyways, but the way he leans his head back into the touch and hums happily seals the deal. Harper could lie here forever like this. He could die happy right now with his fingers trailing through the strands that are curling at the end, starting to grow out a little longer than regs permit. With David's eyes fluttering shut inches from his own face, contentment written across his smile.
Harper thinks he'd do nearly anything to see that expression on David's face every day. For a moment, he has a flash of a life — a future? — in which he does, where he gets to wake up like this, fall asleep like this, where they get to come home to the solace and safety of each other's embrace every single fucking day and they get to do so in a real bed, a bed like this, not in a too-small bunk that they share like a secret, like one of the million little secrets they carry between them. Like their hands barely brushing in the hallways, like their pinkies intertwined under a bench. Like wrapping David's knuckles after he hit too hard for the boxing gloves to keep him from getting hurt, those same bandaged hands coming up to cradle his face, I love you whispered into his open mouth in some hidden corner of a locker room.
"You're so fucking pretty," he whispers, another secret just between the two of them.
David's responding grin could light up an Olympic stadium. Their knees knock together and Harper barely feels it because he's too focused on kissing that stupidly gorgeous smile, memorizing the way David's lashes rest against the ridges of his cheekbones, the tiny crows’ feet at the corners of his eyes deepening with his joy. It’s infectious.
"I'm glad you're here," David says earnestly, pressing their foreheads together.
"Where the hell else would I be?" Harper says. His tone is teasing, but the words are serious as anything. He continues to pet Section's hair, watching as the jetlag and residual exhaustion catch up with him.
They fall asleep like that, tangled together.