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The lieutenant's boots could be heard echoing off of the walls and down the long hallway that connected almost all of the rooms on base. With skull mask on, boxed shoulders, and confident strides, he made his way with no interruption or objection, like usual. This time though there wasn’t anything he was angry about to warrant him stomping to the gym to work out until his brain could only focus on his exhausted body. No, he was searching for someone. A particular bug.
Ghost has been devoid of Roach’s presence for about 20 minutes at this point which was usually incredibly normal. Roach needed a lot of time to recharge on his own after social interactions and the day just in general. The quiet liked Roach, and Roach liked the quiet. Ghost has only been looking because the earlier exit Roach made was quite odd to him.
It was a lazy day in the rec room with no current missions for most of the 141 to be sent away on. The men were playing cards, sharing drinks, and watching the T.V. Ghost had found himself sat at the table in the corner with Gaz, Roach, and Soap. It was normal chitchat, trying to distract from the very possible war looming over everyone’s heads. Roach was responsive but not overly loud. Normal Roach behavior from what Ghost had observed and what he was currently observing. He opted to focus on the way Roach fidgeted with a straw wrapper on table, curling and uncurling it in a lackadaisical way while listening to what Soap was loudly and expressively saying.
Roach had interjected a bit. Everyone in the group had, but after each of Roach’s interjections the time span between him speaking again would grow. When Roach talked, generally it could be assumed that Ghost was listening. Roach was one if not the quietest of the task force besides Ghost. He had liked that about Roach which naturally drew his attention to him. Roach’s curious glances at anything slightly out of the ordinary and big green eyes also drew him to Roach, but that’s besides the point.
Roach has this pattern that Ghost, of course, has recognized. He can put together multiple times he’s seen Roach do this in his head as he continues his search down the hallway and sporadically peeking into rooms. When Roach gets excited or especially tired, he seems to stumble over his words. Ghost has noticed stuttering, unjointed sentences like his brain is moving faster than his mouth can catch up, and word blanks where mid-sentence Roach will pause to try and figure out the word that he just lost. These instances Ghost always likes to mark down in his brain. It was an interesting quirk of Roach’s that he’s not sure if anyone less observant would have picked up on at least the frequency of Roach doing it. Ghost (though you would have to kill him to ever get it out of him) found the oddity quite cute, a foreign concept to the lieutenant.
It was after a good hour of being at the table with the other two that Soap was finally getting to the end of his pub story. Soap was a good person to fill silences and not leave Ghost alone with his thoughts too often, much to Ghost’s Sha grill at the beginning, but he often found himself begging Soap to whittle down his stories just a bit. Nobody needs to know the color of the stools or what cut of mustache the bartender had, and he could see Roach getting even more fidgety than normal at this point. When the seemingly never ending Scottish current of dialogue finally broke off for a few seconds, Ghost closely watched Roach’s next moves. He curled the straw wrapper one last time and stood up. Without a goodbye he walked away from the table, dumped the wrapper in the bin and left the rec room.
“Looks like your story was quite the drag for our bug there.” Gaz said amusedly, joining Ghost in his watching of the younger soldier’s exit.
Soap huffed at Gaz’s remark and started to attest to how good his stories were, and that this time Roach just must not have gotten it, or that’s what Ghost guessed he was saying anyway. Ghost was only half listening to Soap (like usual but hey, sometimes he can be an okay, if not a good friend!) because his brain was rattling off an explanation as to why Roach would up and leave like that?
One of the things the sergeant was that the lieutenant was not was polite.
He would wave when locking eyes across a way, smile when someone enters the room, and excuse himself before leaving. A small quip sometimes or a sincere goodbye would always prelude his exits.
What could have caused that sudden departure? Was Roach uncomfortable with sitting with the others so long? Uncomfortable with the volume of Soap’s booming voice? Or maybe was it that Ghost’s constant staring had started to freak him out?
At this point Ghost was almost desperate to know the answer, and he couldn’t even pinpoint exactly why.
His footsteps quickened as he made his way to one of the unused office’s door. It was a blank office with no one using it since the past owner had well…yeah…It was important to not get too attached in the 141, but once again that was something that Ghost had failed at.
Out of seemingly instinct with no real indicator of anyone’s presence inside, he shouldered the door in.
There sitting on the empty desk was Roach. The room was entirely quiet with only the moonlight coming in from the window opposite of the door and in front of the desk planted in the middle of the small room.
Roach slowly turned towards the now open door, the moonlight catching on the side of his face. The light highlighted slowly drying tear tracks that marked his face.
Ghost felt those green eyes lock onto him and promptly froze. How could he explain that his careful observation of Roach led him to deduce that his behavior was off and that he then had the instinct to follow him?
Once again Simon Riley has fucked himself.
“Yeah…?” Roach’s voice was quiet and slightly broken, but not as surprised as Ghost had expected. Maybe his staring really was obvious. The question spurred Ghost into movement.
He took two slow steps forward like Roach was a frightened wild animal. Then after Roach didn’t scamper off, he further approached. Roach’s eyes followed Ghost all the way as he went to stand at the right side of the desk. The door to the dinky office was shut and suddenly the rest of the task force melted away. All that mattered was why the fuck Roach had shut himself into a dark office crying.
Ghost was starkly aware at that moment that his overall build was fairly intimidating, but didn’t know how to rectify it at the moment. Trying to talk about feelings which is what this looked like (scary) didn’t seem much easier with a 6 '6 man in a skull balaclava staring down at you.
Roach was crisscross applesauce in the middle of the desk looking up at him with his hands fidgeting in his lap. His pupils were blown wide and anxiously awaiting Ghost’s response.
“Well… ya’ scampered out of the rec room in quite the hurry,” Ghost had decided that the best course of action was to sit in the chair behind the desk, peel off his balaclava, and lean his elbows on the spot right next to Roach’s legs. “Wanted to make sure you were okay” The words came out foreign on his tongue, but in that moment to Roach they felt right.
“Heh,” Roach let out a dry laugh looking at Ghost. “Never thought the big and scary lieutenant would be worried about me,” He paused his statement to lick his lips and break eye contact with Ghost for a second. Ghost’s entire body was beating with a new found energy at that statement, and his arms grew warm where they laid next to Roach.
“Well it was certainly the unusual exit for you. Need to make sure yer still fit for PT tomorrow morning.” There it was the humor deflecting that came whenever Simon dared to feel around emotions. There was a small, tired smile on Roach’s lips.
“Must have looked-and hell-look-pretty fucking pathetic for you to follow me out.” The smile on his face was no longer of dry humor but exhausted self depreciation. Ghost was about to interject to the comment when “Wait,” Roach’s head tilted in that way it does when he’s unsure exactly what he’s looking at. “How long were you looking for me? This place is pretty far away from the rec room?”
Ghost drew back a bit in the chair surprised at the realization Roach had had, but he was literally trained to think fast.
“Didn’t take too long, just tracked the smell of caramel candies all the way down the hall,” Ghost smirked at Roach. Roach has these obsessions that he goes through with food. The new one with hard caramel candies had started when the task force members were being asked if they had any requests for the food restocking. Roach had exclaimed his sudden need for hard caramel candies, and it has resulted in him being called an old lady by the other guys every time they see him eat one.
Roach lightly kicked Ghost as a small giggle escaped his lips.
“Ugh you assholes are the worst with that!” He very dramatically proclaimed. “They’re good, so good! You bitches’ palates just aren’t ready for their magnificence. That’s probably why old ladies eat them! They’ve finally unlocked the wisdom of candy after having it for so many years and can tell how amazing they are!” Ghost let out a chuckle at Roach’s caramel candy speech. This is the Roach he’s used to, but unfortunately not the one he walked in on. Against his nerves practically screaming at him he directed the conversation back to the important thing.
“So what happened Bug? You can’t just run away like that and then I find you crying in an office and not tell me what happened,” Roach’s face converted back to the one Ghost walked in on. He practically shrunk into himself on top of the desk. If this conversation wasn’t necessary, Ghost wished he could take his words out of the air and push them back into his mouth for making Roach look like that.
“Its just-argh-It’s so fucking stupid, nothing really, just…” Roach’s eyes were focused on his hands in his lap. His thumb was flicking his other fingers in a nervous fidget.
“You were crying over it. It’s not stupid.” He asserted this line with the same tone he would use to give an order out on the field. He could not have Roach think that Ghost doesn’t care about him. He just learned that he did and wasn’t going to for once in his goddamn life let it slip by.
“No-it really is Simon-” Simon “That’s why I’m crying about it for fucks sake” The end of his sentence got rough but quieter, as he turned his head away from Simon.
“C’mon Bug, I’m not going to make fun of you. Got all of that out of me with the caramel sweets.” Roach didn’t look up but lightly kicked him again.
“It’s just,” Roach made eye contact with him. “This is so fucking weird. I know you hate this shit. Why are you so worried about it? Why can’t you just leave it alone?” Like you usually do. One last try to get Ghost to leave it and ignore what he had seen, but Ghost remembers everything he sees for better and worse. Roach was fully pouting at him now, but Ghost was not going to drop it. He couldn’t.
“You’re not gettin’ out of this Bug. You’re right. I do hate it, but I care more about my sergeant crying alone in the dark in an unused office more right now… Okay Bug?” Roach’s face was a pure mix of confusion and shock at that statement, and it was hard for Ghost to keep himself from being the same. He’s trying for once. Honest to God-or whatever the fuck is up there- trying. Even if he feels like shitting his pants at this moment.
“Harghh” Roach let out a giant puff of air and repositioned himself slightly more comfortably. He looked out the window over Ghost’s shoulder.
“I do this thing,” Roach actually, begrudgingly looked at him to finish his statement. “and it just makes me so fucking frustrated-like-I can’t even explain it right-rip my hair out level of frustration-I guess???” He said the last part with such a questioning tone as if he thought Ghost could give him the answer.
“If it affects you that much then it’s not stupid Bug.”
“But that's why it frustrates me! It's such a stupid thing that I do that no one else here does! And it makes me seem so fucking stupid…” Roach was leaning toward Ghost now, his pout even more prominent than before. Ghost can feel his body if not his mind responding to the closeness, but he brain was too occupied to care. Nothing Roach does is stupid or makes him look that way, so what is making him feel that way?
“What is it? If I know what it is then I’ll know it's not stupid. Even if I already know it's not.” He’s surely not a poet with that line, but he thought it got his point across well enough.
“Stuttering” Roach mumbled it so much and so quietly that Ghost is sure that someone who wasn’t as close as a listener to Roach would have completely missed it.
That’s what this is about? Ghost’s brain halted to a stop. He’s always thought it was rather endearing when he did it.
“Are you kidding me mate?” He kept his tone flat but not mean.
“Hrphh” Roach let out a huff of air and looked at Ghost over the top of his knees. His face was red and tears were welling in the corner of his eyes.
“That’s not stupid and anyone who tells you it is is an arse,”
“Yeah I just…I don’t know, it's embarrassing”
“Not embarrassing, just your brain thinking faster than your mouth,” The dinky office was filled with the two of them and their conversation but didn’t feel oppressive. Ghost moved his hand closer to Roach on the desk.
“You’re doing a fine-ass job here Bug just don’t let this kinda bullshit distract you from that,” Roach leaned his head to Ghost’s shoulder and stilled.