cw: teehee silly 141 blurb
The PT session had been brutal. Soap knew this because he was still on the floor forty minutes after it had ended.
He'd made it back to his quarters. He'd even made it through the door. And then his body had filed a formal complaint and had reached a compromise: the floor.
The floor was fine. The floor was right there. The floor, as it turned out, was also wonderfully, blessedly cold against the back of his legs and neck, and Soap had decided he lived here now.
His door was ajar and he didn't have the energy to close it and he didn't quite care
He was staring at the ceiling when a shadow fell across the doorframe.
Gaz. Soap could tell by the voice without looking. He also didn't look because looking required moving his head.
He paused, Gaz presumably assessed the situation: one John MacTavish, spread-eagled on the floor of his own quarters, not too unlike I flopped squirrel or cat.
"Floor's brilliant," Soap said.
He heard Gaz's boots come off, then felt the thud of him settling down on the floor beside him. There was a moment of quiet, and then a long exhale.
"Mm," Gaz said softly. "Yeah."
They lay there. Doing nothing. It was perfect.
Ghost appeared in the doorway a few minutes later.
Soap didn't see his expression so much as feel it, that particular silence of the Lieutenant.
"Don't say anything, LT." Gaz said.
Ghost said nothing. His shadow didn't move from the door.
Soap lifted one hand off the floor and patted the tiles beside him. A deliberate little pat pat.
It was quiet for a moment. Then came the sound of Ghost lowering himself to the floor and he settled onto his back beside them.
The three of them stared at the ceiling. Doing nothing.
"Floor's cold," Ghost said.
And so they lay there. Doing nothing.
The captain almost walked straight past.
He'd been heading to Kyle's bunk, needing something he'd lent the sergeant, when the massive forms below him in his peripheral vision made him stop and take a step back.
Three of his men. On the floor. Staring at the ceiling.
He stood in the doorway for a long moment.
My boys, something in his chest said, quiet and fond.
Price looked at them. He thought about the various things he was supposed to be doing.
"You lot need to drink water," he said.
"You're not wrong," Gaz agreed from the floor.
Price exhaled through his nose. He looked at the strip of floor beside Ghost.
"The floor's good for your spine," Gaz said to the ceiling. "Decompress the vertebrae. I read it somewhere."
Price crouched down and lowered himself to the floor slowly.
The cold tile settled against his back through his shirt.
He stared at the ceiling.
His boys were quiet around him. Ghost's breathing slow and even. Soap looked like he might actually be asleep. Gaz existing pleasantly in a drifty little space.
"Five minutes," Price said.
And then they stayed for considerably longer than five minutes.
