Chapter Text
Nik should have known when he saw Ghost was behind the steering wheel. Nik should have known when the three texts from Laswell pounded his mobile after midnight, calling for an emergency evac. She didn't need to do so, though, once he saw Price among the names being listed. Getting the hell out of Donetsk was easy, a major there had a penchant for poker but not the skill for the cards, and it was time to cash in on the old favour. He had never gone sober that fast, not after the night he saw Price for the first time, when he was just a lieutenant. The haze dissipated because it knew how important the next few hours were.
There was blood on Gaz and Soap as they carried a limp captain to his heli. His Captain.
He pushed the damn thing to its brink, twenty knots above its designed threshold, so they could get back to Odessa in time. It groaned at him for being cruel, and he spat at its insubordination. Ghost had told him that Price was steady after they hit an air pocket. He didn't give a shit and push the level down further.
So now, in the private room he had arranged for his captain, still unaware of this one-sided affection, Nik kneeled willingly for the first time in thirty years. Not out of the boots of the FSB, not out of the chain on his wrists and cigarette burns on his hands, but out of reverend for a faith he once neglected.
Price's left hand to his forehead, the only one left that the doctors had not prodded at him and linked to the beating of machines, Nik was on his knees and recited the old words he thought he had forgotten. They were his mother's words, because the Lord had known how pious she was, how true her faith was in the face of his father's empty bottles and his wraith thereafter. Funny how things stay when you don't want them.
Господи, Иисусе Христе, Сыне Божий,
Помилуй раба Твоего Иван.
Пошли ему здоровье и силы,
Исцели его от всякой болезни,
Укрепи его тело и душу.
Сохрани его под Твоим покровом,
Избавь от страданий и боли,
И даруй ему мир и покой.
John looked so young with his mutton chop shaved off so they could fit a tube down his throat. The paleness made him more innocent than all the stories those freckles contained on his skin. The blood was his, spilt on undeserving snow that couldn't understand how precious it was. What warmth it had brought to him when Nik and he sat beside each other on the small barstool of a crowded pub. How it was a blessing, to feel such vigour and determination under this forsaken weather of a country.
The light upon them flickered, and the machines lose power for a brief moment. Nik squeezed his hand tighter and said the prayer again. He could hear the distant rumble of AAs colliding with drones and inbound missiles. So insignificant, in the light of his pain, who was breathing steadily, eyes shut.
Sniper it was, the way Ghost had conveyed to him outside the OR where they tried to patch up the two holes on John 's neck and shoulder. How intel was bad and how the rage in him promised to have his hand around Laswell's neck the next time he saw her, until rationality came and rescued him from murdeous intent. It was war, it was their life. Unadultered and simple in the way it could take away a life, careless like the winds rushing down the steppes.
Аминь.
Nik couldn't stand up. John's hand was so cold and if he let it go, letting out this temporary piety, it would never come back. It would be his gravest mistake, it would be the worst of it all. Oh, how much time he had wasted, being right there and yet didn't have the guts to pursue what he wanted. Was it out of fear? It surely wasn't out of respect, because the first time he saw that wide shoulder and narrow hips, he had already fantasised how he would mould the pleasure out of it from his touch. Nik was no stranger to the chase, he had done it so many times before, to man and woman alike. The hunt ended in his bed. His partner of that night was blissed out and he was by the window smoking, enjoying the pleasure he had delivered to them. Looking back, with his knees complaining about the weight they shouldn't get accustomed to now, Nik figured it was just the thrill that he was after. For he could not touch the grand prize of his desire, this one captain with earnest in his voice, the particular way his gait began and ended. That was then, and Nik had missed it.
Nik stole a kiss on John's knuckles, it would tie him over for the next decade.
It would have crossed the line, if he let it linger.
A hand clasped on his shoulder, and Nik startled.
"He'd be fine," said the man. Said the Ghost, but the certainty in his voice didn't lend much warranted credence.
Nik swallowed as he rose to his feet, face still looking at their captain. Oh, how handsome he was.
He tried to find his words, his natural swagger died on the tip of his tongue. How easy it was when the thing mattered the most was lying in front of them, along the returned beeping and coldness. Nik knew he should say something, if he hadn't saw that tremor in Ghost's hands when he sat at the back of his heli, watching the two sergeants taking turns going mouth-to-mouth to the object of his heart, how alike it was to his hands on the levels. They all did.
"I know," he prayed so quietly. Despite all the words the nurse had needlessly translated for them, so the gravity of his state would slip out of their grasp, Nik had the misfortune to parse it. He would pray again and again.
"I know," Nik breathed out, hands still gripped tight on the bed which held John.
"I'll keep watch," Ghost tried to soothe him as he sat down on the stainless steel chair.
"Thank you, Lieutentant." but they didn't leave his bed, not one step. Perhaps they have reached the same understanding, be it hurtful. They would stay until those eyelashes fluttered once more, a dandelion against this sea of worry that had made harbour within them.
They would wait for it.
***
True to his nature, it only took two days out of the medical ward that John had thrown himself into work again. It made Nik seethe with fury he didn't know if he could manage. Gaz was the one that tipped him off, huffed through the chain of messages he had sent his way after 2043 when he left John's quarter. The man must have been stuck with him since the morning break over the tree lines. Nik knocked twice to receive the grumbling of a response.
"Nik?" John looked up from the laptop that was illuminating his face. "How are you?"
How much Nik wanted to whisk him away to the sunny coast of the Adriatic sea, it would be sublime to dote on those freckles, kisses under a real sun. He would have to stow away his wish for the moment. Nik placed the two bottle of stouts on the table edge, opened them with a pop, then handed it out to him.
"Better now, Captain." and more. Well, half of it.
John did the dangerous thing that only reserved when they were alone, which was to wet his lips before taking the sip of the beer.
Nik stared. Proclaim him weak, he couldn't care less in view of such a sight. Then his eyes glanced at the gauge on his neck, the thing was dark red, crusted.
"Captain, you haven't changed?" Nik pointed at the offensive thing, the mark of what almost could happen.
"Oh, this?" John's hand reached up and scratched around the thing. "Forgot it. Bloody busy here, Nik."
The chuckle was his alone, for Nik found no pleasure in it. He took a swig of his own to calm down his irritation, it was rising much faster than he expected.
"The nurse told me you need to change it daily," he gruffed out. They rarely fight, strangely, for who they were and what they dealt with daily.
"Sorry," was that a blush blooming? No, it probably was just what he wanted to see. His captain couldn't possibly become shy just by words, he had seen him enact feats of extraordinary cruelty in their line of work.
Nik walked to his side, his bottle placed beside John's on the table, and pulled out one of the drawers to one's raised brows. The nurses had allocated the extra bandage and antiseptic wipes here, when they were preparing for John to be discharged from Odessa. It was in fact an arrangement that he had signed with Soap, the perky sergeant was as concerned about his commander as Nik was.
"Let's me help you," it was a statement, not a question. Nik believed he had earned himself the right to do so. He looked at John, anticipating some kind of push back, but the man has pushed the laptop away and leaned his neck to the side. Nik could see the stubble which was racing to the surface. Soon enough they would crowd out his features, a camouflage that John enjoyed hiding after. His hands were so close to cup such an exhilarating sensation, but he must stay his hand. He knew how skittish his captain could be on the front of wants.
Peeling off the tape, four by four around the wound, was an excruciating act. The adhesive was too strong, and it pulled at the skin, which made John grit his teeth at his touch. And when all the hassle was out of sight, the puncture on his skin came in full viewing point.
"It's al'ight." John winced.
Nik fucking hated it. He hated being the one that brought pain into John's life. They have enough of it already, privately and professionally.
He made quick work of the wipes, and when the fresh gauge was taped up nicely in a square, like nothing had happened at all, he realised he couldn't find an excuse to stay longer than the content of their bottle.
He took another sip, and John did the same too. The blush on his skin was easier to spot, without all that beard.
"Thank you," John kept his eyes down to the laptop. It was a crime, to hide such depth of blue from him. He knew their lieutenant had the same fascination too, judging by the way they glanced at each other when they thought no one was watching. Seemed like the same affliction had befallen him.
"My pleasure, Captain." He removed himself and sat down to the chair opposite of him.
Now what?
A confession?
A plea?
A "Don't you do that ever again, though I know you can't control it but it would kill me regardless if I found you hurt, in anyways?"
"You scared me, John." he settled on this meagre of outburst, hoping his tone hadn't changed from the proximity and the stillness of late night.
"Nik, it was only some shots," the man batted it away, like he always did. Still, not looking at him.
"You were so cold, John." Nik was aiming for anger, to let that shimer beneath his skin to come forth and laid bare all his outrage. His fear strangled it, by the vines and by the beeping of machines. "You were so pale. They almos-"
He cut himself off from reliving that night, when the blood bank said they didn't have enough blood for the surgery if there was a complication.
"I'm here, innit? I'm here." John flashed a grin at him, that ridiculous Quokka' smile one of Aussie dealers had explained to him.
"You are here."
Nik sat in silence, watching the man returned to clickity clack of his keyboard, the way the old laptop whirled against this block of air between them. He surmised he would have to be more forthcoming in the coming weeks. He was here, after all, and Nik would have all the chance in the world to win over the man's heart. Even if that would be the last thing he do.
He had prayed for this, didn't he?