#also getting back to the meat of my post fr fr I'm trying to remember how to download vids from twitter to share the al-qassam song

[comradecowplant]

"We're not posting a song on Instagram by a band named Hamas, hehe 🤣🤣😝😝😝🤭🤭🤭" yeah well jokes on fucking you because the Al-Qassam Brigades military choir goes hard as hell

[python333]

I love your writings sm. And I love the way you write platonic stuff with task force 141 😋

You can ignore this if ya want but I just can't get over reader angst. Honestly atp I starve for angst. Could you feed us another angst fic? Like platonic 141 with a reader where she maybe got pretty badly injured while being on a mission? :3

AND. don't forget to stay hydrated and eat well!! Take any breaks you need 😌.

(sorry if this doesn't make sense English is not my native language 🥲)

below zero — python333

— — — —

synopsis u get thrown into a freezer after refusing to give up intel to enemy soldiers, and u get thrown into a freezer, and ghost comes and saves u :3

relationships platonic!ghost & gn!reader.

characters ghost.

word count 5.2k

warnings hypothermia, disorientation, 2nd person pov [you/yours/yourself], usage of c/n [code name/call sign].

note hi anon thank u so much for all the compliments!!! before i say anything else, i wanna point out that i 1) only really wrote ghost into this and 2) literally read the request completely wrong and i think im actually just illiterate because how did i mess up this bad. ALSO hi its been a month since i posted on here i swear i'm still alive i'm just super busy with school!! updates are going to be extremely slow, so i apologize in advance. still, i hope u enjoy it anyways tho!! its all hurt/comfort + angst/fluff + protective/soft ghost :3

When you were thrown into the freezer, the first thing you noticed were the bodies. 

There’s ten that you can immediately see, and twelve once you look a little bit closer. All of them are suspended from the ceiling, each hanging from their ankle—with said ankle being held up by a meat hook. 

When the door had been closed shut with a loud, booming thump you hadn’t felt any immediate fear. But now, as you’re sitting in the corner of the freezer you’d been trapped in—the corner farthest away from any bodies—that fear is starting to set in.

Before this, only a few minutes ago, you were being interrogated. Your captors were asking for information on the details of any upcoming missions, objectives, target locations, anything that you had about the 141 that you could share with them, they wanted. 

Of course, you didn’t say anything. You remained silent throughout the entire thing, not talking once, even when at the end of the whole thing your interrogator slammed his hand down onto the table you were sat down in front of and yelled at you to say anything. 

When he and his team figured out that you wouldn’t give them any information, you remember he muttered something unintelligible under his breath and swiftly walked over to your end of the table. He had uncuffed your ankles from the legs of the chair you were sitting down on and uncuffed your wrists from the table, and before you could fight back, he grabbed both of your wrists with one hand and dragged you behind him. 

Then, he led you to the freezer you were trapped in now, and threw you in roughly before shutting the door behind you. You had hit and scratched at the door for a good minute after being thrown in, and after you figured that it was a waste of time trying to do so, you sighed and retired to the corner.

Now, as you’re huddled in the corner, you kind of regret not giving them the intel they needed. 

The freezer wasn’t too bad at first—you thought you’d last pretty long in there, and mentally called all the dead bodies hung from meat hooks in there pussies and simply walked around for a bit. The walking helped warm you up a bit, but soon it got tiring, and you retired to the corner farthest away from any dead bodies. 

You think the freezer is below zero degrees—no, has to be below zero, because now, just about five minutes after being thrown in, violent shivers have started to wrack your body and you swear you can’t feel your lips anymore. You haven’t been able to feel any sort of warmth in the past four minutes, all of it disappearing within the first. 

And God, the smell. The smell of frozen, rotting flesh really isn’t something you ever want to smell again. Thankfully, there’s no live flies in the freezer—all of them had died of the severe cold, creating small black circles under each hanging body where they died. 

You currently have your knees up to your chest with your hands trapped in between your thighs to try and keep them warm at least, with your forehead resting on the top of one of your knees. It’s working, kind of. The palms and backs of your hands feel just warm enough to not be considered cold, but the tips of your fingers are so cold they’re beginning to burn. 

You pull them back a bit to trap your fingertips in between your thighs, exposing the area where your wrist and hand meet to the cold, sighing as your fingertips warm up just a bit. Your thighs, thankfully, still have some heat trapped in between them, and you think your stomach is still somewhat warm. 

Around ten minutes later, you feel the heat trapped in your thighs start to dissipate. Fucking fantastic. You sigh and let your head tilt back, the back of it hitting the wall behind you, making you wince at the cold metal directly on your head. The cold seems to crawl through your hair and make it to your scalp, small pinpricks of the cold spreading throughout your scalp and the back of your neck. 

You’re reminded of just how cold it is then, of how this is quite literally a freezer, and of how said freezer has already claimed twelve lives. Or, at least, has housed twelve dead bodies and several unfortunate flies.

Just then, the fear finally starts to set in. 

At first, you weren’t all too worried about being saved—you figured you’d be found soon enough, since your team has a general idea of where you are. But the more you think about it, the more your brain emphasizes the general part of general idea. You start to think about how they don’t know any specifics. 

Sure, they know that you were captured, and that you were being held in some small part of Italy, and the people who captured you—but what did they know beyond that? Did they know your exact location? How long would it take them to figure it out? And how long would it take them to get here? 

Would you even be alive by the time they got here, if they ever did?

You notice your teeth starting to make an annoying chattering noise and you bite down to stop them. The violent shivers that wrack your body don’t help, the intense trembling only succeeding in making you more anxious. You start to become hyper aware of the cold that crawls onto your back from the freezing metal you’re leaning back on, and you quickly push yourself just a foot away from it so that it no longer bothers you. 

Your feet are starting to feel numb, you don’t think you’d be able to stand on them anymore if you tried, for you fear you’d just stumble and fall down. You look around the small freezer. There’s nothing that could help you get out—there’s only the bodies suspended from the ceiling and the dead flies that surround them. 

You’re glad none of the bodies are facing you—you don’t know what you would do if you had to sit in the corner with a bunch of dead bodies staring at you with their vacant, frozen-over eyes. Thinking about the eyes makes your own water, and you blink away the small tears that’ve gathered on your waterline. 

You can’t feel them, but you see the tears that were once in your eyes now clumping together on your eyelashes, making your brows furrow. With them starting to cling to your eyelashes comes blurriness for the top half of whatever you can see. You sigh, a white puff of condensation hanging in the air as evidence of your exhale, and move your hand out from in between your thighs to wipe away the tears from your lashes haphazardly. 

You don’t bother to put your hand back in between your thighs, instead just resting it on top of your knee. Despite it only having been around fifteen minutes since you were thrown into the freezer, you’re starting to feel more fatigued and your breath slows down significantly, as does your heartbeat. 

Another ten minutes of doing nothing but staring at the wall opposite of your own pass by, and disorientation is starting to set in. You feel oddly forgetful—like at times, you forget how you even got into the freezer, and have to wrack your brain to remember that you literally got thrown into it and are now trapped in here until someone rescues you. Assuming they do. Who was it that would even rescue you? 

You think long and hard for a few seconds, and can scrounge up nothing from your confused mind. You let out a frustrated huff and let your head tilt and fall forward so that your forehead is resting atop your knee, another shiver ripping through your frame. It almost feels like it’s getting colder in the fridge. 

Suddenly, you hear a loud banging noise—albeit, it sounded more muffled to your ears, but you could tell it was loud—and guns being fired. 

You can’t really tell when the gunfire dies down, but you can tell when the thumping of someone’s boots grows louder and closer to the door of the freezer. You try to stand up, not really knowing why since you’re in no condition to fight, having been in a freezer for about forty minutes, but you still attempt to. 

You find that standing is extremely difficult after practically being frozen alive for the past forty minutes, because as soon as you try to even push yourself off of the ground with your shaky hands, you discover that you aren’t even strong enough to push yourself up a single inch before having to stop. As well as that, you find that the ground is just as freezing as the walls and air of the freezer, because your hands now ached with frostbite. 

The action causes an unexpected wave of exhaustion to roll over you, and you pant to try and catch your breath, breathing white puffs of condensation out into the air. 

You hear a loud bang against the door, and jump at the sound, your head whipping towards the door. You hear another loud noise, and the confused fog that’s taken over your mind only grows thicker, your disorientation only growing stronger with it. The room feels like it’s spinning, and the feeling reminds you of a word, and you know what the word is, but fuck, why don’t you know it at the same time? Why can’t I remember anything? 

There’s another bang, and you hear muffled cursing before suddenly the door bursts open, a man wearing a skull mask stumbling in after it does so—he probably ran into it to open it, you think, watching the man get his balance back. He looks around for a moment before his eyes land on you, and the moment they do, you finally remember something. 

That’s Ghost. 

Somewhere in your confusion-clouded mind, you’re happy that you’ve finally remembered something. But right now, you can’t really think about anything—your mind is blank, and you can barely even process what you’re seeing. 

You’re so caught up in thinking about the fact that you aren’t really thinking, you’re just focusing a little more on whatever’s going on in your mind and not actually retaining any of it, that you don’t even notice Ghost rushing towards you and kneeling down right next to you. 

He pauses for a moment, but after a second he makes the decision to put one hand behind your back and snake one under your legs, the warm physical touch making you wince. Not that you didn’t like the warmth—you just didn’t like the sudden temperature change beneath your knees and across your back.

“It’s okay, I’ve got you,” Ghost grunts as he picks you up, one arm under your knees and the other behind your back, lifting you up into a sort of bridal carry. He nearly drops you because of how cold your skin is—for a moment he thinks your back and legs are wet, then he realizes that no, they aren’t wet, you’re just really fucking cold. 

He takes a moment to make sure you’re secure in his arms before tilting his head to the side, all the way down to his shoulder, and muttering something into his earpiece. Despite being so close to him, his voice only sounds muffled to you—in all honesty, just about everything is starting to sound more muffled to you. You can only tell he’s done talking because he lifts his head back up and readjusts his arms around you, before walking out the busted-open door. 

The walking quickly turns into running, which then turns into sprinting, making your surroundings go blurry and makes your vertigo worse—it almost feels like you’re falling. You’re grateful you haven’t eaten anything in the past few hours, because you fear that if you had, you would’ve thrown it all up by now. All you can see are blurred colors—the hallways, you vaguely remember, because I’m in a building. How’d I even get here? Why am I here? You’re pulled out of your confused thoughts when you’re set down on the ground somewhere, and forced into a lying position with your limbs all outstretched. When you slowly blink up at what you thought was the ceiling, you’re both surprised and not surprised when you see the blue-black night sky. 

Not sure of what’s going on, you try to get up, but Ghost quickly pushes you back down, muttering something under his breath. He pauses for a moment, his blurred figure stopping any and all movements, before he suddenly picks you back up, making you wince at the way your head spins at the sudden movement. You hear a quiet, muffled—but clearer than before—’sorry’ from Ghost before he’s running again. 

It’s a much shorter distance this time, and instead of immediately setting you down, you hear something click and suddenly you hear another muffled voice. They sound concerned, you mentally note, Or maybe confused. Maybe both, actually. No yeah, definitely both. Well, now just concerned. Or maybe that’s confused. 

Caught up in your confused thoughts, you don’t realize that you’re being set down on a few comfy seats. You aren’t pulled away from your own thoughts until you feel two warm hands cupping either side of your jaw, and hear Ghost’s oddly distressed voice becoming more clear by the second. You now acknowledge the weird ringing in your ears that almost drown out the sound of Ghost, and struggle to figure out what he’s saying through the annoying noise. 

“—something,” You catch the end of Ghost’s sentence, and blink up at him slowly. 

“Huh?” You elegantly ask, coughing and wincing at your hoarse voice, not knowing how it got so hoarse—or why it hurt so much to talk. Your throat almost felt like it was burning, but it also felt oddly numb, a sensation you couldn’t quite put a name on. 

“Oh my god,” Ghost sighs, his forehead falling onto your chest momentarily as he takes a few deep breaths. He brings his head back up from your chest and says, ��I almost thought you were dead when I got in there. Jesus, you look dead. I need to— I need to get something, a blanket or— why the fuck don’t we carry any heat packs or anything in here? Swear to God, I’m gonna—” You don’t pay too much attention to Ghost’s panicked ranting and shift your head to the side to try and look at where you are, and you discover that you’re in a car. Oh. Cool. You spot the door on the passenger seat’s side still open and swinging a bit, as if it’d been opened quickly just a few moments earlier for someone to quickly get out. 

Ghost suddenly backs up and gets out of the car, though staying within a foot of it, looking around for a moment before heading to the back of the car. Your head clears up the tiniest bit, just enough for you to be able to assume that he’s heading to the back of the car to get to the trunk for whatever reason, and you simply lie there on the seat cushions. 

A few seconds later, Ghost comes back with a somewhat-fluffy jacket, and carefully gets into the car—half kneeling down so that he doesn’t need to lean on the seats to get to you. He tosses the coat over your chest, and it does absolutely nothing at first, at least not until Ghost gets a bit closer and tucks the coat tighter around you, treating it like a blanket. Then, it starts to warm you up just the tiniest bit. Beyond that, it does absolutely nothing. But props to Ghost for at least trying. 

He quickly backs out of the car and once he’s out he closes the door behind him, and you want to get up for a moment, just to go see what he’s doing, but you don’t have to. He gets into the car again, this time in the driver’s seat, and he turns on the ignition. Once the car rumbles to life, he immediately turns up the heat and leans over to the passenger seat’s side in order to close the door, and with a grunt he manages to do so. 

The newfound heat makes you shiver, and it almost feels like you’re in a microwave defrosting. Distracted by the sudden temperature change, you don’t pay attention to what Ghost is saying into his earpiece as he glances out the front window of the car and back at you. You simply tug the jacket tighter around your torso and relish in the warmth. 

“—ay. So we’ll just leave then, and you’ll be fine?” You pick up from Ghost’s conversation, perking up at the mention of leaving, “Copy that, Captain. I’ll get them back to base.”

‘Captain’—Oh, he’s talking to Price—says something that makes Ghost sigh exasperatedly and take his index finger off of his earpiece, instead settling both of his hands on the steering wheel of the car and stealing one last glance at you before setting his eyes on the gravel ahead of him and pushing down on the gas pedal.

— 

When you wake up, you’re significantly warmer than you were… however-long-it’s-been-ago. 

You look to your left and see nothing but a white wall and a heart rate monitor—which displays that your heart rate is 115—then to your right, where you see Ghost sitting in a plastic chair close to the bed you’re laying in, eyes closed with his head tilted to the side and resting on his own shoulder.

You don’t bother trying to wake him up, not knowing how long he’s been asleep or how much sleep he’s gotten, and instead simply turn your head back to stare up at the ceiling. 

After maybe five minutes of zoning out and staring up at the ceiling, you hear clothes rustling and look back over to your right, seeing Ghost start to stir in his sleep. Just a few seconds later, he stirs awake, slowly blinking his eyes open. 

You watch silently as he blinks the sleep out of his eyes, and he breathes in sharply through his nose before looking over at you and seeing you staring at him wordlessly. You both blink at each other for a long, awkward moment before he speaks. 

“… Did you, uh… how was your… rest?” Ghost asks, not sure what to say. What exactly do you say, after saving one of your teammates from potential death?

“Good,” You respond, your throat having an odd, small burning sensation when you talk. 

Ghost looks like he’s holding back a few words for a moment after you speak, and after one expectant look from you, he mumbles, “You should really say ‘well’ or ‘fine’ instead. It’d be more grammatically accurate and is more grammatically aligned with the verb ‘rest’.” 

“… Okay?” You blink, thrown off by the unexpected information, “I’ll, uh… keep that in mind, next time someone asks me how my rest was.” 

“You get asked that often?” 

“I only get asked that by you.” 

“Ah.” Ghost nods, looking off to the side for a moment. You’d think he was your dad and you’d just asked him how babies were made with how awkward he was, and you honestly expected the next words out of his mouth to be ‘when a man and a woman love each other very much’ before he hesitantly asks, “D’you feel better? After the whole being-trapped-in-a-freezer… experience?” 

“Experience?” You question, a light laugh evident in your voice, “Yeah, I feel better. I like being warm more than, y’know, being frozen alive. Laying down in a warm bed is nice.”

“I didn’t know how else to phrase it,” Ghost huffs out, leaning back in his seat. 

“So you’re gonna correct me on my grammar but you can’t think of a better word than ‘experience’?” 

“Don’t get smart with me, [c/n].” 

“I’m just saying,” You shrug lightly, wincing a little when your shoulders ache as you do. Ghost notices this and his eyes narrow, but he doesn’t mention it. 

“Then stop trying to sass me.” 

“Sass you? Jesus, fuck, don’t talk to me like I’m some preteen who just found out that they can talk back to their parents.” 

“Isn’t that what you are, though?” 

“No, I’m— you know what? Fuck you. Get out. I hate you. You suck.” 

“That’s a colorful choice of words to say to the man who saved your life,” Ghost raises an eyebrow at you, “I’m still waiting for my ‘thank you’, by the way.” 

“Don’t care, you’re never getting it,” You say stubbornly, making Ghost sigh and stand up. You look up at him as he stands up and try to sit up in your bed, but wince again when you try to move your arms. Still, you attempt to push yourself up, and only relax your weak joints and lay back down when Ghost presses a gentle hand to your shoulder to get you to stop trying to sit up. 

“Don’t,” He warns softly—you didn’t know his voice could get that soft—as he pushes you back down, “Medics said you’re to keep laying down for a bit while you warm up. We’ve gotta wait until your BPM is below a hundred before letting you up.” 

“That’s stupid,” You huff out, though not fighting Ghost pushing you back down. 

“It’s not stupid,” Ghost lightly chastises you, “It’s doctor’s orders. Once your BPM is below a hundred, we’ll know you’re warmed up enough to start gettin’ up and walking around.” 

“… Still stupid,” You grumble, not commenting on the way Ghost’s hand lingers on your shoulder even after you’ve already laid back down. Ghost sighs and kneels down so that his shoulders are level with the railing of your bed. 

“You’re too stubborn.” 

“I’m not.” 

“Yes you are.” 

“No I’m not!” Your light arguing only proves Ghost’s point further, and he knows this, the knowledge of it making him snicker quietly. 

“Uh huh. Sure, kid,” He begins to retract his hand from your shoulder, but upon seeing the disappointment that immediately seeps into your expression once he even barely begins to lift his hand from your shoulder, he immediately lets it rest right back onto your shoulder. 

You both sit in silence for another few moments before Ghost speaks up again, this time a bit quieter and in that same soft tone he’d used earlier, “I tried to get to you quicker. But we needed some time to get your exact location, and when we found it we were a hundred and sixty klicks away, and it was just—it took us… some time to find you.” 

“It’s fine. I understand,” You respond, about to shrug but stopping yourself, not wanting to feel that aching in your shoulders again, “I don’t even know how I let myself get captured, that— that’s probably on me.” 

“You didn’t let yourself get captured, you just did.” 

“Well…”

“Well, what?” 

“I don’t know, I just—” You take a deep breath before continuing slowly, “I didn’t let myself get captured, but I also didn’t do enough to fight against it, so I feel like technically—” 

“Fuck the technicalities about how you got captured, you got captured either way, and you got thrown into a freezer,” Ghost cuts you off, talking quickly, before sighing and continuing in a softer voice once again, “Please, just let me try to be somewhat comforting for once. You know I’m bad at this, and that I never do this. So just… don’t talk about what happened like that, if not for your own mental health’s sake, at least for my attempts at making you feel better.” 

You open your mouth to say something else but ultimately close your mouth and let out a deep sigh through your nose, not saying anything, letting Ghost continue to talk. 

“I, for whatever reason, feel… very oddly bad for you,” Ghost poorly explains, before pausing to think for a moment then rephrasing, “Not… not as in I pity you, but as in I feel bad for you in a way that I feel like I’m at fault for what you went through even though I know I’m not at fault. It’s like empathy but… worse. Not saying empathy is bad to begin with, but this is like if empathy was bad and it became worse and—” 

Ghost cuts himself off with silence and lets out a frustrated huff at his inability to put his feelings into words, and tries again, “I feel bad for you in a way that I don’t know what exactly you felt or how you felt in the moment that you were in that freezer but just the idea of you being in there without me for… I’m assuming an entire hour, if not longer, makes me feel like I failed. I don’t know what I failed at—”

Ghost quickly pauses before sighing and continuing, “Actually, no, I do. I feel like I failed at protecting you. Which is strange, because that’s technically not my job, but I felt—and still feel—obligated to protect you especially and that bothers me. Not bothers me in a sense that I don’t like you or the thought of… protecting you, but bothers me in the sense that I’m not supposed to feel like that. No amount of teasing, or borderline bullying, or anything should’ve ever made me feel obligated to think of you like— like— like…” Ghost trails off, leaving you wondering what he meant to say. He stays silent for a few moments, before you try to fill in for him. 

“Like… what, a kid?” You offer, watching him shake his head negatively. You think for another moment, before trying again, “… Like your kid?” 

Ghost nods affirmatively, hesitantly, and you want to scoff at the hesitation. 

“And what, that’s bad to you?” You ask, your words more venomous than you intended. Ghost sighs and nonverbally shakes his head negatively before responding to you.

“Not bad in the way you’re thinking,” He answers, before elaborating upon seeing your confused expression, “It’s bad not because you’re bad, it’s bad because I’m bad.” 

“… No you’re not?” 

“Yes, I am.” 

“No, you’re really not,” You insist stubbornly. 

“Please don’t be stubborn with me on this,” His tone makes it sound like he’s almost begging you, which is… somehow beyond terrifying to think about.  

“I’m not being stubborn, I’m being honest, you’re really not.” 

“But I am,” He sounds like he’s trying to make his tone sound like there’s no room for any further arguments, but he fails, and you continue to argue with him. 

“No you’re not!” The whole conversation feels like a parallel to the one you’d both been having just a few minutes earlier, except this time you’re not giving up as easily, “How are you bad?” 

“I’m—” Ghost pauses for a moment, not having expected that argument, and he weakly argues, “I just am!” 

“You’re not, and you fucking know it!” 

“Okay, well—” Ghost sighs and looks away from you, “You might not think so. That’s fine. But I know I am. If not for anything else, for you. I’d be… terrible as any sort of… I don’t know, role model to you.” 

“Jokes on you, you’re already a role model to me.” 

“I’m being serious.” 

“So am I,” You raise an eyebrow at him, “You aren’t a terrible role model. A little emo, sure, but not terrible.” 

“I’m emotionally and mentally unstable, and am terrible with empathy. I’m blunt, abrasive more than half the time, and I tell the shittiest jokes known to man. I can’t— I don’t show my face to anyone. I expect everyone to act the way I want them to. I’m almost always busy.” 

“At least you’re self-aware,” You brush off, “And, for the record, I don’t know what abrasive means and I can’t tell empathy from sympathy without using Google.” 

Ghost looks back at you in disbelief and stares for a moment before saying quietly, “Abrasive means harsh. And empathy is showing understanding for others while sympathy is pity.” 

“I also like your shitty jokes,” You add on, “I think they’re great. They make everyone else mad so I like them. And some of them are funny.” 

“You find them funny?” 

“Yeah?” 

“That’s…” Ghost blinks at you, eyes a little watery, before huffing out a small laugh, “That’s ridiculous, none of them are funny. I call them shitty for a reason.” 

“Some of them are pretty funny.” 

“Oh yeah? Like what?” 

“The Mayflower one.” 

“… That one?” Ghost asks, tone humorous but still disbelieving, “Out of all the ones I’ve told, that one?” 

“Yes, that one,” You insist, before pausing and holding back a smile while tacking on, “Unless you wanna tell it again to try and change my mind?” 

Ghost thinks for a moment before telling the joke, “If April showers bring May flowers, what do Mayflowers bring?” 

You feign cluelessness for a moment, “What do they bring?” 

“Pilgrims.” The bluntness of the delivery makes you quietly snicker, much to Ghost’s surprise, the laugh not forced or anything. 

“It’s still good,” You sigh, small giggles still escaping your lips. 

“It’s really not,” Ghost sighs, finally retracting his hand from your shoulder to settle it on the railing of your bed and use it to help himself stand up. Once he fully stands up, he looks down at you, and one look at your face makes him want to whisk you out of bed and at least hug you, but he knows he can’t with your sore muscles and still-somewhat frozen skin. 

Instead, he opts for grabbing one of your hands gently and giving it a very emotionally charged squeeze, and holding it for another few moments before letting go. 

“I’m not forgetting that, by the way,” At Ghost’s confused eyes, you tack on, “You confirming earlier that you think of me as your kid.” 

“That—” Ghost stammers for a moment before saying, “That was barely a confirmation, that was just— that was nothing.” 

“Oh really?” 

“Yes. Yeah. Yep.” 

“So if I told you that you saying that that was nothing is making me a little bit upset…” 

“… Then I would say, out of pity, that I did mean it and that it was a confirmation.” 

“Good to know,” You nod. 

“But that’s only a hypothetical.” 

“Right, yeah, of course.” 

You both stay silent for another moment, the silence now a little less awkward, before Ghost says, “I’m gonna, uh… head out, now.” 

“Alright,” You hum simply, watching as Ghost nods to you as a sort of ‘bye’ before heading towards the curtains in front of your bed. 

Before he can exit, you quickly and quietly say, “Thank you, for saving me.” 

He pauses, a little confused on why you chose now to thank him—and why you thanked him at all—until he quickly recalls earlier in the conversation when he’d mentioned expecting some words of gratitude. 

He smiles behind his mask, the smile evident in his voice as he replies to you, “No problem.”

[ace-of-hearts-and-spades]

EVERYBODY SHUT THE FUCK UP MEG POSTED A NEW FIC FOR THE PASSENGER I REPEAT WE HAVE A NEW RANSON FIC 🗣️🗣️📢📢

I'm VIBRATING IN MY SEAT I'm EXPLODING I am LAUNCHING MYSELF INTO SPACE YESSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSS. This is so fuckin soft and sweet and aughaughaah they deserve it after all the fuckass shit they've survived and been through (because they definitely did survive, one-hundy percent, no denial to see here folks 🫡)

Anyways the rest of my stupid play-by-play rambling is under the cut. But suffice to say I loved this and I'm obsessed with it and I'm going to be rereading it several times okay.

Love that Benson wakes up with backpain lmao. Me the fuck too man. Me 🤝 Benson fr.

Not a chance with this marshmallow bed and the sun popping its stupid Raisin Bran fucking face through the blinds. Benson sleeps dark and cold and silent with his back to the wall. Arms locked in front of his chest like armor. Like a corpse on a slab.  Or he used to, anyway.

God this part is just so fuckin Benson. The fucking scathingness of marshmallow and Raisin Bran fucking face is perfect and also very funny to me. But of course he sleeps like a corpse on the slab, like he's protecting himself or like he's just a living dead boy shell of a human facade......... I feel ill.

He inhales slow and deep and he smells warm and bright and a little grimey. Like summer. Like sweat and mud and the most beautiful blue sky you’ve ever seen.

RANDY SMELLS LIKE SUMMER............ JOTTING THIS DOWN THIS IS SO REAL THIS IS SO FITTING of course he smells like summer to Benson ouhgoghufgfghh 😭😭😭

And the nightmares they both have that wake them both up and how they try to support each other in different ways?? ow ow OW my fucking HEART. BENSON'S HAD SO MANY NIGHTMARES ABOUT SUFFOCATING THAT HE CAN'T DO THAT ANYMORE!!!!!!!!!!!! WHAT IF I KILLED SOMEBODY ABOUT THIS!!!!!!!!!!!

Sometimes he wants to fuck them up. Track mud across the carpet, break a dish. Say the wrong thing. Bite down too hard.

Ahhhh classic push-them-away-so-they-can't-hurt-me-first typa deal. I can totally envision Benson doing this. Keeping everyone at arm's length, and when anyone gets too close, he purposefully sabotages any potential capacity for a relationship. He's come to expect being a fuckup. But then Randy just pierces through his defenses and despite everything, despite how they came together..... he just can't. And more than that, he simply doesn't want to.

There’s been a violence in Benson for as long as he can remember. Bone-deep. And it’s a magnet, pulls other violence right to him like wasps to fresh meat.

Obsessed with this imagery oughhhhh

And Benson likes being Randy's guard dog...... fuck of course he does. He loves getting to pretend that he isn't a wobbly-legged calf too, standing by the edge of the road and watching the cars pass by and waiting for the day one comes too close and splatters him across the pavement or the day someone decides it's finally time to put this old cow out of its misery. Wow okay that got dark. Sorry. My brain went somewhere.

The version of himself who’s confident and decisive and knows who Trent Reznor is.

Stoppppp that's so fucking cute 🥺

“If you fall out I’m leaving your ass behind.”  “No you wouldn’t.”  “You��re right, I wouldn’t.” 

Literally my reaction lmao "shut the fuck up benson u liar we know u wouldn't."

Also I fucking love the details of Randy having crust in his eyes and leaving a pink mark on his cheek and Benson's chest from where he was pressed up against him. It's so realistic and almost...... I want to say deromanticized? But it's still so soft and sweet. It feels more genuine, almost.

And Randy talking about the dream where they're at the beach and Benson punches a shark so hard it dies had me giggling out loud. That's so fucking amazing oh my God. But then Benson says he's never been to the beach........... "Like loss except you never had the thing in the first place. Like realizing maybe you’re supposed to be mourning something but you don’t really know what that something is or why it’s so important." Brb launching myself out of a window ahhhhhhh 😭😭😭

Okay but then Randy starts trying to "convince" Benson to go to the beach with him 👀 👀 👀 Okay. Okay.................... 👀

OKAY I'M DONE NOW LOL THAT WAS A LOT. Fucking incredible work as always my friend. Your fics are always such a treat gahhhhh mwah mwah mwah a thousand kisses for Meg 💕💕💕

folger's, eat your heart out

oh my god this got away from me so bad it's wanted in twelve states. but it's done (is anything ever done) and i'm.......i'm quite happy with it. i really hope you like it.

4.3k words. canon divergence, boys on the run. established relationship. character study, lots of introspection. implied sexual content, nothing too explicit. so much kissing. hand job. light s/m. night terrors and vague mention of canon-typical trauma. mostly soft, so soft. benson is so in love and doesn't know it yet <3

read on ao3 here if that's more your speed.

It’s a Tuesday. Benson knows this because his eyes snap open automatically at five in the morning even though he hasn’t set an alarm in weeks. He opens on Tuesdays, been on that schedule for so long he doesn’t even need the alarm anymore anyways. 

Well, he used to open on Tuesdays. 

He wakes up slow. Gets a savage satisfaction out of being somewhere unfamiliar, revels in it. With bleary eyes he traces the outline of the water damage on the ceiling and it’s different than the one back home. Room smells different too, stale sweat and dust and complimentary green tea bar soap. The mattress is too fucking soft, folds around him like dough. His spine is electric with pain. 

Fuck, he’s getting old. Twenty-nine going on fifty. 

He drags a hand over his face and wishes he could fall back asleep. Not going to happen. Not a chance with this marshmallow bed and the sun popping its stupid Raisin Bran fucking face through the blinds. Benson sleeps dark and cold and silent with his back to the wall. Arms locked in front of his chest like armor. Like a corpse on a slab. 

Or he used to, anyway. 

He can’t feel his left arm. He pushes his chin into his throat at an odd angle to look down at Randy, still asleep, curled up on Benson’s chest like a sandy-colored cat. His hands are tucked together, long, knobby fingers folded over each other, resting in the center of Benson’s ribs. The sun takes each strand of his hair and wraps it in gold, even his eyelashes, laying long and pretty on his cheeks. 

Fuck Folger’s. Nothing comes close to this. 

It’s surreal, still. Being here, being anywhere, together. Like, together. Unbelievable the way he fits so neatly under Benson’s arm. He rests his lips against the crown of Randy’s head. He does it because he wants to, because he can. He inhales slow and deep and he smells warm and bright and a little grimey. Like summer. Like sweat and mud and the most beautiful blue sky you’ve ever seen. Fucking perfect, he’s perfect. 

He's peaceful now, which is saying something. Randy’s a terrible sleeper. Sharing a bed with him is punishing. He thrashes in his sleep, digs elbows into Benson’s ribs and jolts him awake in a panic ready to fight, and then Benson has to stare into the abyss and count to a thousand before he can calm the fuck down and drift off again. 

He never talks about his nightmares. Benson knows he has them, but he knows better than to ask about shit like that. On occasion he’ll wake up to Randy tugging on his arm, pulling it around him like a security blanket. He doesn’t mind that in the least, rolls over half asleep and wraps himself around Randy’s sweat-soaked body. He pins his arms to his sides for both their sakes, buries his face against the back of his neck, and that’s that. Problem solved. 

Benson, on the other hand, sleeps like the dead–save for the nights he wakes up screaming and doesn’t realize he’s doing it. Doesn't even know he's awake until he sees Randy’s face floating above him in the dark, wide-eyed like some twig-limbed owl. Until he feels his hands on his face, wiping salt from his cheeks. 

Shit sucks, because then he has to turn all the lights on and pace the room, chewing on a cigarette and cracking his neck ‘til it's sore, trying to walk it off. Randy sits on the bed hugging his knees to his chest and watches him like a hawk. But he doesn't speak, doesn't try to push it, waits patiently until Benson crawls back into bed and lets him decide where he wants to be. 

He can't stand to be touched during and after those episodes, always hated when his ma would try to smother him when he was still young enough to smother, but funny enough, Randy’s okay. Doesn't seem to count. Maybe it's because he lets him set the pace and doesn't get his feelings hurt when Benson curls up on the edge of the mattress with pillows stacked between them. Either way, most times Benson falls back asleep with his head tucked into the hollow of Randy's neck and those skinny arms slung around his shoulders. And the light on.

The night terrors aren’t new, but it’s been a while since they’ve been this bad. It’s like they’ve worked their way to the surface of his brain. Like a splinter finding its way out of the skin. He doesn’t like Randy seeing him that way, but he can’t really help it. He used to sleep on his stomach with his face in the pillow so he wouldn’t wake Ma and have to deal with her on top of everything else, but he had so many nightmares about suffocating he can't do it anymore. 

But Randy never lets Benson apologize in the morning, insists he doesn't mind being woken up. He's told him that again and again, so often that Benson’s starting to believe him. They’re both fucked in the head just enough that it makes it okay. No hard feelings. 

Last night was quiet for both of them, for once. Benson wishes he was still asleep to take advantage of it, but this is nice too. He can feel Randy’s breath on his collarbone and it’s driving him crazy, a little bit. He’s not used to nice things. He’s always scared he’s gonna fuck them up somehow. Sometimes he wants to fuck them up. Track mud across the carpet, break a dish. Say the wrong thing. Bite down too hard. 

He’s learning how to be gentle. He’s trying, like, really trying. Randy doesn’t make it easy, that’s for damn sure. The way he whimpers when Benson’s hands are on him isn’t fucking fair. The way he bares his throat and gasps and begs. And then he shows Benson the marks afterwards like he’s proud of them, like Benson wasn’t there when he got them. 

“You did a number on me,” he said last night with this sheepish grin, almost giddy, leaning over the sink to look at himself in the mirror. Prodding at the bite mark on his shoulder, the hickies on his neck. Never mind all the shit he couldn’t see from that angle, but Benson saw it. The shape of his body all over Randy’s in bruises. 

Made him feel kinda good and kinda bad, sort of guilty, but then Randy looked over at him with those eyes, hair all mussed, bottom lip cherry red and swollen, and said with unmistakable adoration, “You’re an animal, Bence.” 

Un-fucking-fair. 

But he’s trying, he is. Trying to ease up on the reins. Trying to be soft, because Randy needs soft no matter what he asks Benson for in the dark. He can’t fuck this up. Can’t fuck him up; at least, not any more than he already has. On the list of things he’s ever wanted to fuck up in the world, Randy is at the bottom. 

And it’s good too, the lovey-dovey bullshit. It’s good. It’s great. The way Randy falls asleep on his shoulder halfway through the movie, any movie, no matter how good it is or how loud it’s turned up or how much Benson promised him he was gonna like it. The way he bumps his knuckles against Benson’s when they’re standing shoulder-to-shoulder, just because. Just to touch him. He’ll catch him smiling at him for no reason, all the time, just glance over and there he is looking like they’re on their way to Disney World. No one's ever smiled at him like that. He’s not even doing anything to earn it, he’s just living his fucking life. The fact of his existence is apparently an ongoing novelty to Randy. 

Crazy fucking kid. 

Benson feels like he’s body-swapped with someone on better terms with luck and the skin doesn’t fit quite right but fuck, he’s figuring out how to make it work. He doesn’t get handed things like this. Good things with no strings attached. He’s always kind of on edge, always waiting for someone to break down the door and haul him away. For someone to pause the laugh track and punch through the set. For Randy to suffer a moment of clarity and tell him to go fuck himself. 

He’s never had this kind of good, never expected it. Never really thought he deserved it. And Randy sure doesn't deserve this kind of bizarre sideways bullshit that makes up the best that Benson can offer. He deserves better from him. From everyone. From life. Benson keeps trying to tell him that. 

Too bad he can't quite convince him. Too bad Benson’s selfish and couldn't let go of him if he tried. Wouldn't even try. Wouldn't turn out well. 

He runs his thumb across the angle of Randy's cheekbone, feather-light. He wants to let him sleep and he wants him to wake up and he doesn’t know which he wants more. He draws lines across his cheek, from the corner of his mouth, along the edge of his jaw, carefully, carefully, so gentle his hand shakes. He’s probably never been hit in the face. Probably never had a black eye, broken nose. Shy, scared, beautiful thing. 

There’s been a violence in Benson for as long as he can remember. Bone-deep. And it’s a magnet, pulls other violence right to him like wasps to fresh meat. Sometimes he loves it, sometimes he hates it. He always falls back on it, no matter how hard he tries to leave it behind or wrap it up so tight it can’t get out. He fails again and again. But it doesn’t scare Randy anymore. In fact, it’s like Randy gives it justification. Permission. Validates it. Like maybe it’s hung around this whole time just so Benson could learn how to use it, for his sake. To protect him. At least until he figures out how to protect himself. 

And Randy’s learning, he is. Stands up taller, takes up space. Orders his own food at restaurants. But Benson kind of likes playing guard dog. Likes being needed in that way, and others. Likes being needed by Randy in particular. 

Benson’s already killed for him, so it’s like he’s always trying to find a way to top that. That should be hard, right, but Randy makes it easy. Gets excited over nothing, little shit like finding both their names on some dumb souvenir keychains. Or when he brings him a bag of plain fucking potato chips, his favorite. Or when Benson covers his eyes before the money shot in some gore flick because he’s a pussy and also it dredges up some shit for him that neither of them wants to think about. The way he lights up about that stuff, stupid little stuff, makes Benson feel worthwhile in a way he can’t describe. 

For all he goes on about helping Randy become the best version of himself, the version of himself who’s confident and decisive and knows who Trent Reznor is, sometimes Benson gets the feeling like maybe, Randy’s the one making him better. Not changing him, not really, just…making him kind of okay. Making it all kind of okay. There are so many things Benson’s taken for granted, never thought twice about. About himself, about his life, about where both of those things would end up and how they’d get there. Randy makes him reconsider. Makes it worth reconsidering. 

It feels wrong to stop him. Might as well let him try. What’s it gonna hurt?

Sometimes he wants to laugh in disbelief at it all. Who the fuck is he these days? Going soft right and left and glad for it. He feels like he’s on another planet. Hundreds of miles from home, no phone, no way back. Shooting towards the sun with everything he needs inside his shitty little rocket ship of a car. 

Randy’s a spaceman for sure, no question. Ever since they turned west and hit the desert, he hangs out the window when they drive at night through all that nothing, head craned back to look at the sky. 

“The fuck you think you’re doing?” Benson asked him the first time, when he rolled down the window and started climbing out like a fucking lunatic. 

“Looking at the stars,” Randy said. “There’s so many, Benson…you should look.” 

“No thanks, I'm driving.” 

“I mean…you could stop first.”

“I’ve seen stars, Randy.” 

Randy was halfway out the window so his reply was almost lost to the wind. “Not like this.” 

Benson reached over and grabbed him by the pocket of his jeans. “If you fall out I’m leaving your ass behind.” 

He let Benson pull him back inside then, and stared right at him in this new way of his. This new, brave Randy who had finally shaken some of that paralyzing fear of confrontation and figured out how to be direct. “No you wouldn’t.” 

Benson had looked at him for as long as he could without drifting into the other lane, and then looked at him a little bit longer and had to course correct. “You’re right, I wouldn’t.” 

He’s right. He wouldn’t. 

Benson lets the memory slide away and finds Randy gazing up at him here and now, eyes crusted with sleep. He feels a twinge in his chest like a guitar string being plucked. The whole room is golden now. 

“Morning, sunshine,” he says, and even he can hear the velvet in his voice. Feels self-conscious about it for a second until he gets distracted by Randy wrinkling his nose to stave off a yawn. 

“Morning,” he murmurs, peels his cheek off Benson's chest and leaves a pink circle behind that matches the one on his face. He rubs at his eyes and gives him that dumb Disney World smile. “Sleep well?”  

“Slept great.” Benson swipes away a stray eye booger from the inside corner of Randy’s left eye. “Nice to have one single solitary night where I don't have to fight you to the death.”

Randy bites the inside of his cheek, looks bashful. Benson fucking loves it. “Well, I mean…you wore me out pretty good last night.”

Benson smirks, takes hold of the back of Randy’s neck and pulls him back into his shoulder. “Yeah I did. I oughta do that more often.”

Randy worms his arm beneath the covers and around Benson’s waist and it gives him honest-to-god butterflies. He runs his fingers through Randy’s hair. It's getting fucking long, almost falls past his ears. He keeps asking him to cut it and Benson keeps refusing. It's got this little flip at the ends that he thinks is cute. He bets it’ll grow out into gorgeous fucking waves when it hits his shoulders. 

He takes a fistful and squeezes, does that a couple times before he tugs his head up so they’re nose-to-nose. Randy’s eyelids slide half-closed and his lips part on reflex. 

“What you wanna do today?” Benson murmurs. He can feel Randy’s breath on his chin, licks his lips. 

“...just this,” Randy says, almost a whisper. 

“That’s it?”  

“Yeah.”  

“You’re not bored of this?”  

“No.”  

Benson almost smiles. “Me neither.”

He pushes Randy's head back down into the curve of his neck, rides the swell of satisfaction he gets from his frustrated groan. “Don’t worry, babe, we got all day. How about you, how’d you sleep?”  

“Good.”  His thumb moves back and forth along Benson’s hip and it’s electric, feels like he’s got lightning bolts shooting around under his skin, makes his muscles twitch. He’s still not used to that. Gentle shit like that. “Had a dream about you.”

“No shit?”  He’s not sure anyone’s ever dreamt about him before. He’s kinda flattered. “Was it hot?”  

Randy snorts. “No, it wasn’t…like that. We, uh…we were at the beach.”  

Benson screws up his eyebrows, looks down at Randy. He can’t see his face from this angle. “The beach?”  

“Yeah. We were just, like…there. Just messing around. I mean, there were other people there, but they didn’t…matter.”  

Benson doesn’t know what to make of this. “Huh. That’s it?  Just…beach day?”  

“Yeah. Well, I mean, until the end. A shark showed up and you…punched it so hard that it died.”  

Benson does a genuine double-take. “I punched a shark. And it died?”  

Now Randy twists, looks up at him, smiling. “Yeah. It was awesome.”  

It sounds kind of awesome. Benson pokes him in the ribs. “You’re a fucking dork.”  

“I’m just telling you what happened!”  

“Look, Randy, I’ve never been to the beach, but I’ve seen Jaws about one thousand times and I know for a fact a shark would swallow my ass whole. And it would eat you and not even know that it happened. I’m not saying I’m scared, I’m just saying, don’t count on me to save you from a fucking sea monster.”  

Randy doesn’t laugh and Benson looks at him and he’s making that face, that little frown and the line on his forehead that means that Benson just said something puzzling. Here we go. He tenses up without meaning to, braces for it. Grits his teeth, pops his knuckles. 

“You’ve…really never been to the beach?”  

Fuck, he hates this feeling. Like loss except you never had the thing in the first place. Like realizing maybe you’re supposed to be mourning something but you don’t really know what that something is or why it’s so important. He knows his upbringing wasn’t shit compared to Randy’s, compared to most kids’. He just wishes he could grow out of giving a shit about it. 

So he gets defensive. He always gets defensive. “No, I’ve never been to the fucking beach. What’s so super-duper special about a bunch of sand?  And water that’s mostly fish piss?”  

Randy props himself up on his elbow, leans lightly on Benson’s chest, completely unfazed by his attitude. “Well…let’s go. You can decide for yourself.”  

“To the beach?” Benson says incredulously. “Randy, we’re in fucking New Mexico.”  

“Not–not today.”  Randy waves his hand dismissively. “We can leave tomorrow. Make a beeline for California.”  

And that’s that. The magical realism of the newly reformed Randy Fucking Bradley. No pity. No shame. Just the simplest solution in the whole damn universe. 

“California.”  Benson pictures the Beach Boys and hippies on rollerskates, rolls his eyes. “Sounds dreamy.”  

“It’ll be worth it, Benson, I promise.”  Randy looks at him with those puppy-dog eyes, chews his lip, slides his arm around Benson’s waist. He knows what the fuck he’s doing, the little shit; he’s too smart for his own good. “We don’t have to stay. We can leave as soon as we get there. I just…I think you would like it.” He leans a little heavier against Benson’s ribs, nudges his foot with his toes. “Please?”  

Benson huffs. He’s not a fucking pushover, swear to God he’s not, but it’s like he can’t help but fold these days. He’s gonna spoil the guy rotten if he’s not careful. He has to at least pretend to put up a fight, just to say he tried. “What if I say no?”  

His brow furrows. The puppy-dog eyes flick down to his mouth and back. “Well...maybe I could convince you.”  

One of Benson’s eyebrows pops up. He likes the sound of that. “I’m listening.”  

Randy sits up unsteadily on the marshmallow mattress and straddles Benson’s hips, tucking his hands beneath the pillow on either side of his head. Benson looks up at him, the angles of his face kissed by the sun, and feels a pleasant sort of ache in his chest. It's almost the same feeling as when he finally gave in and pulled over and let Randy sit on the hood, leaned back next to him and looked up at the stars and felt big and small at the same time. 

“It’s amazing, Bence…you can't even imagine.”  His thighs press against Benson's waist, wrists press against his shoulders. 

“Yeah?” Benson licks his lips. His eyes can’t move fast enough, trying to take in every piece of his face, of his body, his name written all over all of it in red and purple. “Tell me about it.”  

Randy's hair is hanging over his face like a messy kind of halo. He peers through it with this earnest intensity, this lion cub ferocity that might be the hottest thing Benson's ever seen. He shifts his weight to one hand and strokes the sensitive spot behind Benson’s ear with his thumb, sends chills spidering across his skin. 

“The smell of the water and–and the sound. You never forget it. And it makes you feel…it’s massive. It’s amazing.” 

“You know what else is massive?”  

Randy stifles a chuckle, looks away, color rising in his cheeks. Benson grins. “Listen to me, Benson.”

“I'm listening!”

“It makes you feel…it makes you feel small, I guess. But not in a bad way. We could just walk around or maybe…swim a little bit?”

Benson pictures Randy with wet hair, dark and wavy, water rolling down his neck. Salt water, salty skin. “Could be nice.”

“We can do whatever you want.”  He curls his toes against Benson’s thighs. “We could get ice cream and sit in the sun.”

The image of melted sticky sugar dripping over Randy’s hand, down his arm, hits Benson like a truck. Knocks the wind right out of him. He thinks about licking it off, watching him suck it off his own fingers. He wraps his hands behind Randy's knees and grips harder than he means to. 

“That sounds, uh…that sounds good. I’m into that,” Benson says and he sounds like a moron in his own ears but it makes Randy smile so it's fine. He can feel the blood rushing away from his brain as fast as it can and he’s about ready to give in and end the discussion. Move on to other things. 

Randy gets that earnest, uncertain look in his eyes all the sudden and touches Benson's face, brushes his thumb across the lines at the corner of his eyes in this foreign kind of way that Benson’s brain registers passively as tenderness, and all the sudden he can't breathe right. His throat’s fucked up like he’s getting sick. He swallows hard. 

“I want to–I want to kiss you in the ocean,” Randy says quietly. “I think…I'd really like that.” 

So now this is the only thing Benson cares about. His number-one goal. A shining and glorious reason to be alive. He’s going to kiss Randy in the ocean if it’s the last thing he fucking does. 

“How about you kiss me right here, huh?”  He cups the back of Randy’s neck and pulls him in, hard, yanks him really, because he can’t fucking help it. Because he wants him right now, right fucking now. 

Randy resists, just a little, on reflex, and then gets overeager and his lips crash into Benson’s, but that’s okay. Randy kisses like he’s starved for it, always, no matter how long they’ve been at it. Even now, first thing in the fucking morning, he opens his mouth expectantly and moans when Benson slips his tongue past his teeth, one hand twisting the sheets, the other gripping his shoulder. He’s greedy, wants more, always more, is done depriving himself after fourteen years of solitude. 

They’re a perfect match because Benson wants to give it to him. Anything he wants, everything, always, no matter where they are or how much skin is showing. He wants to share his space, his spit, his air, his anger, every inch of the car, every inch of the sky. All the bad nights. All the good ones, too. All the golden mornings that come after. 

Benson laps at Randy’s bottom lip, catches it in his teeth and pulls. He digs his fingers into the half-healed shadow of his own hand on Randy’s waist from all the times before, opens his mouth to catch the gasp that wrenches free from his chest and swallows it whole. 

“Benson,” Randy says, breathes his name like an exclamation of wonder. He presses the length of his body against Benson’s, weaves his fingers through the curls at the back of his neck and squeezes tight. He moves his hips in short, subconscious little thrusts, makes a desperate, hungry noise in the back of his throat. Benson can feel him hard against his stomach and fuck, he better pop a handful of painkillers for his back because they’re not leaving this shitty bed anytime soon. 

Randy leans to the side so there’s a little breathing room between them. He runs his hand over Benson's chest, down his stomach, wraps his fingers around his dick and the sound Benson makes is strangled, animal. 

“We can go, right?” Randy says. He strokes him like he can barely contain himself. “We can leave tomorrow?”

Benson arches his aching spine against the bullshit fucking mattress, digs his nails into Randy's back, feels lucky. Feels like a spaceman. 

“Fuck yes. Fuck–yes–you got it, baby.”

Randy lights up and it's like staring into the sun. Transcendent. Fucking beautiful. 

He twists out of Benson's grasp and ducks beneath the sheets and Benson can't fucking stand it. Can’t believe it’s real. He feels weightless, so light he just might end up way out there with all the stars. Nothing comes close to this, never has, never will. It’s not fair. He probably doesn’t deserve it. But no one ever said life was fair, now, did they?  Sooner or later the odds had to end up in your favor.

He closes his eyes and grips the sheets and lets it be, lets it all be for once. Because for once, it's good. He's good. He's great. And they’re leaving tomorrow. For California.

Sounds dreamy. 

tagging a couple friends who have gassed me up and been so patient sdlkfjlsk i just adore you guys <3

@crumb @ace-of-hearts-and-spades @cherubgore