#oc: rhion dancer owens

[darkworkcourier]

tiny little ghost/dancer fic that's been spinning around in my brain for weeks. the background is that ghost and dancer joined the SAS at the same time (they're only a month apart in age) and they're besties. (also FWBs in the future.)

so around this time, they're about 22 years old. ghost's just staring to really become Ghost, but dancer's just dancer.

cw for PTSD, trauma, and a wee bit of gore.

---

"Ghost. Hey. Hey." A hand tapping his helmet, the dull thunk-thunk reverberates through his skull. Then, with a little more insistence, "Simon. Look at me."

He does. Slowly. His neck feels like it operates on an old, rusty mechanism, aching as he turns to look at Dancer.

Dancer, right? At the moment, his mind is a tempest, throwing thoughts around like flotsam after a wreck, misplacing things he knows are supposed to be important. Their mission, what he's supposed to do next, the face of his best friend—

"Fuck," Dancer whispers. His eyes go wide, searching Simon's face for... something. Whatever he's looking for, Simon isn't sure if he's found it or not. He immediately opens the Humvee door and leans out, calling to their captain. "Give me a minute with him, 'kay? Just—"

He must make a motion with his hand that communicates something, because immediately after, Simon hears the captain grunt and say something like, "If it was anyone else," whatever that means.

The door shuts, leaving them alone in the wide cab, engine muttering quietly like an afterthought.

In an instant, Dancer's undoing the clasp on Simon's helmet, removing it and setting it down on the console. Dancer's own helmet follows, and then one of his hands is on Simon's head, fingernails gently scratching over his scalp—grounding him.

"Talk to me," he says. "Where are you right now?"

Hell if he knows. Maybe ten klicks back, caught in the frozen black mud with ordinance firing and leaving a burning taste in his mouth. He's back with a body, left arm missing, right hand gripping a rifle with fingers bent like claws. Fragments of a skull cling to his gloves, grey matter on his fatigues, patches of blood itchy on his face. All the while, the mantra—if I can hold his head together, he'll live. He'll live.

"Simon." Dancer's voice cuts through the chant, his hand firm and warm on Simon's head. "You're here. With me. You're in the back of this same bloody fuckin' Humvee that brought us out here. Captain Whitman is outside right now with our Lt., an' they're probably talkin' about something really fuckin' boring like... like cricket scores. Or that pub that Whitman never shuts up about. The one with the stupid name— what is it? The Hare and the—"

"The Barking Hare," Simon hears himself say.

Dancer grins. It's exhausted, and there's dirt at the corner of his mouth, but it's earnest. "Yeah," he replies. "The hell kinda name is that, anyway?"

Simon shakes his head. Doesn't know.

"Right, so they're talkin' about their stupid pub and cricket scores. And then they're gonna get in here and keep talkin' about it, so we'll have to hear it all the way back to base," Dancer goes on. His voice moves up and down like a song, and Simon feels himself lean into it. His right side is pressed against Dancer's left, and he nods slowly. Dancer's hand drops to the back of his neck, pulling Simon in close so their foreheads touch. "Whitman'll talk about how they don't play cricket like they did back when he was young, whenever that was. An' Lieutenant Foster will just say the word 'right' over and over because he's not actually listenin'."

"Until they start talkin' about rugby," Simon replies.

He feels Dancer laugh against him, a low rumble that draws Simon in even closer. "At least I can talk about rugby."

"Whitman wouldn't let you get a word in."

"No, but you an' I can talk about it," Dancer says.

Simon closes his eyes, smells the gunpowder-smoke-sweat clinging to Dancer. He focuses on the feeling of his best friend's hand running back and forth across the nape of his neck, drops his head a little to give Dancer more room.

Then Dancer asks in a low, soft voice, "What do you need from me, Si?"

Anything. Everything. He needs Dancer to hold onto him like this, to keep Simon from leaping out of his own body like he's a squatter just barely claiming rights. He needs him to scrub out every drop of blood and brain matter violently embossed into Simon's skin from the man he couldn't save. He needs—

"You," Simon replies, wretched and broken up. His throat feels tight. He hasn't cried in years, but for the first time, he feels perilously close.

Dancer's nuzzling up to him, undoubtedly leaving a dirt smear on Simon's face. "You have me, mate," he tells him. "Y'know that."

He does. They've had each other since day one, when they were scraping their way through SAS selection like two desperate animals. Dancer had him the moment he shoved their shoulders together during an exhausted walk back to the tent during their stamina trials, muttering, 'I feel like I fuck up less when I'm around you.'

"I know," Simon replies. One of his hands finds the back of Dancer's head, fingers running through his sweat-damp hair.

And he thinks, I'm less fucked up around you.

[clockworkcourier]

BASICS

FULL NAME → Rhion Dafydd Owens

NICKNAME/CALLSIGN → "Dancer" by SAS personnel; "Bwlyn" by his mom and older sisters

AGE → [REDACTED] (Older than 40)

BIRTHDAY → July 9th

SPECIES → Human

NATIONALITY → Welsh

GENDER → Cisgender male

ORIENTATION → Bisexual

AFFILIATION(S) → SAS, SpecGru, Task Force 141 (sometimes)

OCCUPATION(S) → SAS Lieutenant, specialist in hostile environment warfare (mountain, desert)

THREAT LEVEL → Deceptively high

SPOKEN LANGUAGES →  English, Welsh, French, some Arabic

APPEARANCE

FACECLAIM → Trystan Gravelle

EYE COLOR(S) → Hazel-brown

HAIR COLOR(S) → Black, going gray

DOMINANT HAND → Right

ACCENT → Strong Welsh accent, but excellent dialect mimic

HEIGHT → 6'0"

WEIGHT → 210 lbs

BODY BUILD → Build like a weight lifter, muscular torso and forearms, fairly husky

TATTOO(S) → Large Mari Lwyd tattoo on left forearm, Welsh Dragon on his right shoulder, SAS symbol on his right forearm, secret ankle tattoo he shares with Ghost from one drunken escapade (a pickle wearing sunglasses and riding on a skateboard)

PIERCING(S) → Each ear pierced once, healed dick piercing also from a drunken escapade

GLASSES → No

SCARS → Very, very many; most prominent is his above-the-knee amputation of his right leg

OTHER → Prosthetic right leg

BACKGROUND

HOMETOWN → Trecastle, Powys, Wales

FINANCIAL STATUS → Born working class, now fairly middle class

EDUCATION LEVEL → Began undergrad studies in Cardiff but dropped out

RAP SHEET → Nothing officially on file anymore

PRISON TIME → Only arrested once for public drunkenness

RELATIONSHIPS

BIRTH ORDER → Youngest of seven total children

PARENTS → Andrew Owens (father, estranged); Ellen Davies (mother)

SIBLINGS → Morgan, Lucy, Gwen, Meredith, Sian, Megan

FAMILY → Dafydd Owens (maternal grandfather)

SIGNIFICANT OTHER(S) → Various throughout the years, but nothing super serious

CHILDREN → None (he thinks)

ENEMIES → Probably many

PETS → 12 year old Border Collie named Millie

VICES

SMOKES → Yes

DRINKS → Yes

DRUGS → Marijuana

VIOLENCE → You bet

SELF DESTRUCTIVE → Nope

PSYCHOLOGY

MENTAL → CPTSD, anxiety

PHYSICAL → Prosthetic right leg

ANGER EXPRESSION → Bottles it up and pretends everything is fine, then unleashes it somewhere else later

ALIGNMENT → Chaotic good

PERSONALITY TRAITS → Friendly, warm, excitable, generous, quick to laugh, mercurial, secretive, eager, curious, protective

MISC

SIN → Lust

ZODIAC → Cancer

ELEMENT → Water

SEX PREFERENCE → Dom, but will happily be a switch

ANIMAL → Sheepdog

MUTATION/SUPER POWER → Telepathy

POST APOC. → Friendly soldier

[radiojamming]

playing with picrews on the discord again aaand

Carrie, Dancer, and Adler yaaaay

[darkworkcourier]

hi yes hello i made some quick ghost & dancer for my enjoyment because mw3's got me down

---

Ghost and Dancer meet in Brecon, like always. Manchester's too crowded, has too many memories. Something about Brecon feels good—nostalgic. They're not too far from Pen y Fan, and they can joke about the selection trials over tall, foaming pints. It's comfortable, and even in the months and sometimes years between their meetings, they pick up old banter like it's been no time at all.

"Sian's married now. I told you that, right?" Dancer asks. He's carried most of the conversation, which Ghost is perfectly fine with.

"No," Ghost lies.

"Right. Married, new house, new job, new car, new—" He stops, flashing his left hand open like a firework. "New everything, mate. It's like she's not even the same lady. Mum's afraid she's not gonna want to come home since we're out in the country. Maybe too provincial." The word comes out with a hilarious sneer, and Ghost smiles despite himself.

Dancer goes into his wordy observation about his sister's new husband, and Ghost just relaxes into the ride of his voice. He's probably spent more time with the Owens family than he has his own, tallying up Sunday roasts and Christmases and more than one raucous Saint David's Days. They welcome him back like the prodigal son every time he visits, and it gives him the same feeling as when he sees Dancer again. It's something like coming home. After everything's he's been through in the last few years, it feels really damn good.

Without thinking, without sparing an extra thought as to how he might sound, Ghost interjects with a quick, "I missed you."

Dancer brakes to a stop mid-rant, dark eyes wide, foam from his pint clinging to the hairs on his upper lip. "Huh?"

It'd be easy to pass it off as something else, but it's even easier—somehow—to double down. "Missed you," Ghost repeats. He chases it with a quick drink for fortitude. Good things come so rarely, with gaping abysses between them. He needs this. "World's gone to shit. Life's gone to shit. You've been the first good thing I've run into in a while."

Either the pub lighting is warmer than Ghost remembers, or Dancer's coloring's gone high in his already ruddy cheeks. But, always and reliably, he breaks into a wide grin and uses his free hand to gently nudge Ghost in the shoulder. "Ysbryd," he says, all affection. "Missed you, too."

Ghost smiles, for the first time in months.