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MacTavish wakes up slow.
It takes a minute, blood congealing in his joints, accompanied by a jittery feeling he’s come to associate with painkillers – the half-ass kind, that really doesn’t get rid of the pain, just makes him numb all over. He blinks, glances around – dark green walls, paint cracking and peeling off, revealing a cheery blue underneath. Why they painted over it, he’d never understand. He really hates Credenhill.
His head tilts to the other side, which makes his neck protest in annoyance at being made to work – and he finds Nikolai there, staring down at him with the same blank look he’s always got. It’s not the least bit reassuring, and he groans, turning back the other way – this earns him an almost amused huff of breath from the Russian. “Good morning, sergeant. Welcome back to the land of the living.” His tone is flat, heavily accented – MacTavish can hear the smile in his voice, irritating and grating as it always is.
“Wh… Wha’ the hell–” His tongue is heavy in his mouth, and Nikolai hums.
“Dog bite, sergeant,” he replies ruefully, nodding along as he speaks. He runs the flat of his tongue across his teeth. His hand is curled around the railing of his bed loosely, almost relaxed. “You have certainly looked better.” MacTavish sincerely wishes they’d left Nikolai in the mountains where they’d found him.
“Dogs,” he replies sourly, wincing. Now that it’s been mentioned, he can feel the pull of bandages on his neck and bicep – but only enough that he knows there’s something wrong. He imagines it’s a mess of stitches and plasters and gauze stretched over gnawed muscle and tissue. “I hate dogs.”
“ Da , I can imagine.” Nikolai answers, arms crossed over his chest. “I have not told your captain. Figured you would not like to answer to him when you look so…” His eyes narrow, like he’s sincerely searching for what to call him – how to refer to his condition, which MacTavish is sure is awful. “Well, they left your face. This is always good news.”
“Oh, aye.” Good news. Doesn’t feel like good news. Nothing about this feels good – he groans, scowling, when he moves and pain shoots up his shoulder and ribs, stabbing like someone’s shot ice into his blood. He grumbles a bit, relenting against his effort and sinking back into his bed, head thumping against the pillows with a dull noise.
Doing so well, only to suffer injuries by a damn hound. Price really ought to kick him out just for that. Too many injuries, too little time – first, he falls off the damn plane, and then he gets mauled by dogs; fucking perfect, really.
“Your sergeant requested to see you. Not sure how he found out–” Nikolai starts, jaw working as he crosses his arms over his chest all too casually.
“My sergeant ?” MacTavish snaps, which makes Nikolai lift his hands in a placating gesture. “Which one?”
“Garrick,” he answers, and when MacTavish’s eyes widen almost angrily, he amends, “ah, relax. I did not tell him. He was here for– ah, painkillers. Yes,” he nods again. “I told him you were unconscious, so he did not visit.” Nikolai hums quietly. “It is strange. Most people won’t argue with me about things. I’m not even ranked, and he just… walked off.” He huffs out an exhale, before repeating: “it is strange.”
“Probably because you’re a friend of Price,” MacTavish thinks aloud, somewhat quietly. He can hear the buzzing of the overhead lights in the silence he leaves, and when he looks back over, Nikolai is sinking down into one of the chairs by his bedside – meant to be reserved for family and friends, but MacTavish supposes he’ll accept the company of a grizzled Russian prisoner, too. “You talk to him like a friend, anyway.”
“Your captain keeps himself in isolation. I do not think it is productive for him,” he replies, crossing one of his legs over the other. “He will thank me one day.” He nods, almost self satisfied, and MacTavish rolls his eyes. He doesn’t think Price has ever thanked anyone for anything.
Somehow, it’s difficult to imagine Price in basic. He thinks, a bit amused, that Price would probably tear back into the drill sergeant if he were ever yelled at, all flaming anger and English slang no one used anymore. He’s watched, more than once, sergeants come out of his office, metaphorical tail between their legs, head down like they’re attempting to hide from his scrutiny that seems to follow even after he quits yelling.
It’s a bit funny – but he doesn’t think he’d keep this amusement if it were ever him on the business end of one of his scoldings.
“Two weeks of shots,” Nikolai breaks the silence after another moment, chin held in his fingers. He tilts his head until his neck pops, and he lets out a sigh. “And you are entitled to medical leave for… five weeks, if I am remembering.” He nods, like he’s confirming it to himself. “You should savor the time off you have.”
“Doing what? Running drills?” he asks, and Nikolai huffs a laugh.
“Could do desk work. Could go on proper leave for a couple of weeks, go see your family.” When MacTavish blinks at him, confused properly, he backtracks. “Ah, your mother is listed as an emergency contact. I’m to assume she’s alive, then?”
“Yeah- yeah, she’s alive,” he confirms quietly with a short nod.
Nikolai, for his credit, seems to pick up on the fact that MacTavish doesn’t want to talk about it, and he relents. “Right, then. And you should not hide an injury like this from your captain. Up to you, of course, but I cannot imagine it will end well for you if he finds out from someone else.”
MacTavish hesitates a minute, glancing back over at the wall. “From who, like you?”
“Never know what will come up,” he shrugs, but his tone suggests the affirmative. MacTavish bites back the threat that’s surfaced, because even if Nikolai isn’t ranked, there’s still the knowledge there that he’s important. “In the meanwhile, you need to rest. That… nurse, the redhead–” He indicates on his body about how tall she is, even though MacTavish was unconscious and likely wouldn’t know or remember her. “Ach, anyway… she said you were dehydrated. That is what the bag is for.” He points, gesturing toward the IV bag that hangs from a pole by his bed, wire connected into a vein in his arm.
“Oh, and… before I forget,” he pats around his chest before apparently finding what he’d been hunting for, and rummages around to pull out a worn leatherback journal, red bookmark hanging limply in the air - MacTavish physically jerks in surprise, and Nikolai haphazardly tosses it into his lap. “It fell out of your gear when they cut it off of you. Almost got kicked under your bed.”
MacTavish lifts the book as if to inspect it, but it’s mostly to save face more than anything - he knows what it is. He glances back up at Nikolai, who nods slowly. “I did not open it.” MacTavish almost feels relieved, and he tucks the book back beside him, between the side of the bed and his ribs. “Should I tell Garrick to keep away?”
“Doubt he’ll listen to you,” MacTavish offers in reply, because it’s mostly the truth - while Nikolai is generally respected, Gaz has a bitter habit of listening and doing the exact opposite of what he’s told. He figures that he’ll be in within the next hour, at his bedside to toss jokes.
“That, I will wager,” Nikolai grins, eyes shining in the white overhead light. He laughs as he leaves, door not quite closed before he’s chatting with one of the nurses out in the hall - MacTavish wonders if it’s the redhead he was talking about earlier. He decides a few moments later that he doesn’t much care, when a headache takes over his skull and drags his eyes closed.
He’s woken up again by someone shaking his good arm, fingers tightly clasped around it, and a dull hissing in his ears. When his eyes do flutter open, barely cracked, he sees a blue cap, English flag patched on the front. There isn’t light filtering through the blinds anymore, and the overhead is off, so he assumes it’s well past curfew.
“You’re alive,” comes the flat response, tinged with a quiet worry that most people wouldn’t pick up on.
“ ‘gainst my will…” MacTavish grumbles, squinting up at him, brows furrowed together. Gaz is staring down at him, eyes bright blue, almost glowing in the darkness. His lips are quirked up in an awkward sort of half smile, pleased with himself when MacTavish swats at him.
“Aye, don’t get mad at me. Just coming to check on my sergeant,” he states bluntly. “Heard you got rabies. Fitting.”
“You’re the old army dog, not me,” Soap snaps back; Gaz scoffs, offended at the implication. Whether it be at being called old, or a dog, MacTavish wasn’t sure. “Bloody things came out of nowhere. Six of them, all foaming at the mouth, barking so loud you couldn’t get a word in edgewise,” he grouses, slumping down further into his pillows. “Hate dogs.”
“Nik said you said that. I believe it,” Gaz nods, arms crossing over his chest. He’s stripped out of gear and down to his fatigues, shirt untucked from his pants and hanging loosely over his front. “How’re you feeling?” He presses a hand - freezing cold - to MacTavish’s forehead, which earns him a weak squawk.
“Feel like shit.”
“You look like shit,” Gaz confirms, eyes subtly flickering over to where his arm is still wrapped up. It must’ve been changed sometime when he was teetering the line between consciousness, because the gauze looks newer. “You’re lucky they didn’t nick an artery. You’d be in a world more of trouble if they had.”
“But they didn’t.” He’d been briefed on the extent of his injuries once by Nikolai, and then again by one of the nurses - notably, not the one Nikolai seemed to be struck on, but a taller man, dark hair and a Canadian flag patch on the front of his uniform. Direct, to the point, detailing his injuries and his treatments, all the drugs he was on, how often the bandages were to be changed, how much leave he was entitled to, if he wanted it. It was a whole list of information, but he’d picked up most of it.
“It’ll leave an interesting scar,” Gaz offers, and MacTavish hums thoughtfully. “You’ll be lucky if the team doesn’t start calling you Rabies.”
MacTavish levels him with a glare that could kill, and Gaz snorts a laugh, pushing his mohawk back down how it’s meant to be. “Oh, relax. I’m not gonna tell. M’not that mean.”
“You are that mean.”
“Don’t make me reconsider.”
“Twat,” MacTavish spits out, like the word is heavy in his mouth, and Gaz’s grin grows wider somehow.
“Oh, you’ll live,” he replies, forcing a sigh out of his mouth. He shifts on his leg, finally drawing his hand back - MacTavish instantly feels warmer in his absence. “You did good. Real impressive to hear about.”
“I’m sure it was. Heard you couldn’t wait to come see me,” MacTavish half jokes, and Gaz rolls his eyes, scoffing under his breath. “What? That not true?”
“Not even close. I came to get painkillers–”
“For the leg,” Soap infers.
“Yeah. Just for painkillers, because the head medic on duty doesn’t ask questions,” Gaz confirms with a nod, “and I happened to hear you were fighting for your life in here. That… pilot stood in your door, made me leave. Something about saving your dignity, or something.” He rolls his eyes - MacTavish smiles.
“He really made you leave?”
“Not even a ranked officer and he’s still ordering me around,” Gaz insists, fingers curling around the edge of his bed, nearly white-knuckled around it, “and he reeks . Smells like oil and smoke, all the time. Almost makes me wish we went to get Kamarov instead.”
“Let’s not be hasty,” Soap deadpans, eyes narrowing.
“At least Kamarov bathes. Smells like soap, like a proper bloke. Nikolai smells like a damn car shop,” Gaz reinterates, annoyance lacing his tone - his nose crinkles up like he’s offended. “Can’t walk by him.”
“You’re being dramatic.”
“I’m not!”
“Think it’s just because you’re so clean.” MacTavish thinks to compare him to a cat - when he’s on base, he washes his hands more than regularly, more than recommended really, and when they’re off base, dropped in the middle of nowhere on a mission, he keeps wet towels in his first aid kit, attached to the front of his vest. Hates the smell of gun oil, hates the smell of blood and metal and smoke - it’s anyone’s guess as to why he’s even in the military.
Gaz tilts his head, like he’s thinking, before relenting with a nod. “Might be.”
“Probably.” His hands are clean even now, no dirt under his fingernails, and he doesn’t have any particular smell. “I think Nikolai smokes, so it’d make sense.”
Gaz rolls his eyes. “Hate cigarettes.”
“You really picked the wrong profession,” MacTavish offers, unhelpfully, and Gaz flicks him in the forehead to tell him so.
“I’ve gotta get back before Griggs throttles me,” he replies, easing up straight again. “Don’t die in the meantime, alright? Going to your funeral would be a total drag.”
“You’d go to my funeral?”
“Jump in the ground when they buried you,” he adds solemnly with a small tilt of his head, which succeeds to earn him a light laugh. “Sobbing and wailing like a proper widower, hm?”
“This is what I’m talking about. Dramatic ,” MacTavish says pointedly, but he’s smiling anyway, unable to hide it behind his hand or an insult. “Go to bed, Garrick.”
“I’ll bring you tea in the morning.”
“Oh, that’s how you plan to kill me, then? Your tea is shit.”
“They should kick you out of the country for even daring to say that,” Gaz wags his finger at him, eyebrows creased together. “Downright unpatriotic, you are.” He pats him on the arm, touch gentle. “G’night, Soap.”
“Yeah, yeah,” he huffs. “Still bringing me tea?”
“Are you going to complain?” he asks, hands on his hips.
“Might. You’ll see, if you bring me tea.”
“Twat,” he responds quietly, lips quirked up a bit. “Alright. Anything you want, Soap. I’ll come back tomorrow, yeah?”
“Yeah.” He realizes, about halfway through, that he’s falling asleep, and the lilt in Gaz’s tone is him struggling not to laugh at him. He doesn’t snap back any insult, and the door to his room opens and closes without another word.