You were on overwatch, nestled safely in your snipers nest on a ridge line, 600 meters away from the action.
The 141 had been sent on an op in the middle-of-no-where desert with just a small settlement nestled in a shallow canyon. Prime place for sniper activity. The rest of the 141 were boots on the ground for this. The plan was for them to sneak up to the target, infiltrate the building said to be housing the terrorists, and take them out. Simple enough, you’ve done that a hundred times. Your job was to call out anyone with line of sight to prevent them from being seen too early, and to pick off any stragglers.
The boys were getting into position, keeping you apprised on the comms.
“We’re approaching the settlement. You have eyes?” Price is all business on ops.
“Yeah, bonnie, how’s my arse look from up there?” Johnny is not.
“Johnny—“ you barely hear Simon start to reprimand him before the comms cut out.
You scoff a little and shake your head at his antics, reeling it in before responding—he can’t know you laughed at that. “I see you.”
You see Price smack the back of Soap’s head through your scope. “We’re pushing up, keep eyes, tell us where to move.”
Admittedly, the op goes off without a hitch for a while. The boys move up incrementally, taking out some enemies you call out. Any that are further out you’re able to take care of with your silenced rifle. That is until a bullet nearly find a home in Price’s foot.
“Jesus, sergeant, check fire!”
Your brows furrow, your finger isn’t even on the trigger right now. “That wasn’t me,” you respond confused until another shot almost makes a home in Kyle.
You barely see the flash of the muzzle further down from where you are. But it’s enough. There’s another sniper up here.
“Take cover! We have an enemy sniper on the ridge!” You relay.
They scuttle behind various dilapidated structures to get out of the sight of the sniper.
“I know where he is, I’ll take care of it. Stay put.”
As pressed as you are to admit it, he chose a good spot. Nestled in such a way that he’s covered from both sides and barely visible from the ground. You’ll have to move to get a shot on him.
You start to pull back from the scope and reach for your smaller gun when you see a shadow in the corner of your eye. Another enemy sneaking out of the dead brush that surrounds you, with the muzzle of his gun pointing directly at your face. You’re rapidly coming to the realization that the sniper was not alone. You both stare for a split second before you both jump into action.
He fires a shot, but you anticipated that, shoving your hand under his wrist to throw his aim above your head. You can hear the bullet wiz past, a sharp sting on your forehead indicates you maybe weren’t fully successful. But you’re still alive, which is enough to put up a fight.
Your hand is still on his wrist so you yank, dragging him off balance. And pulling him into a tussle.
You’re distracted when you hear the comms crackle back to life in your ear.
“We heard a shot, are we clear? Why didn’t you use your silencer?”
You’re both fighting to come out on top, still wrestling for his gun. The blood from the graze is leaking into your eyes, blurring your vision.
“Sergeant, how copy?” You can hear more panic in his voice now. 
You finally wretch the gun from his hand, and it goes flying off the ledge.
“Little busy!” You grind out.
He throws you off of him, lunging now for your gun still sat beside your rifle.
You get to your feet so you’re standing when he whips around, still the one in this exchange with a gun. So not fair. He wastes no time in trying to shoot at you, so you get low and lunge for his legs. He’s close enough to the ledge so when he trips, he trips off the cliff. What you didn’t anticipate, however, was him grabbing your tac vest and pulling you with him.
The boys have been watching the ridge in anticipation. Waiting for a signal from you or an all clear over the comms. Instead what they get is the sight of you tumbling off the ledge, falling however many meters.
“No!” It’s a visceral, grating noise ripped from Simon’s lungs, sounding more like it was involuntarily dragged from him than anything else.
“No, no, no,” Price mumbles, looking through his scope trying to get a view of you, but there’s too many buildings from their angle.
They all instinctively start moving out from behind the structures to get a better view, until the sniper starts up again, shooting them back into cover.
“They’re fine, they’re always fine.” Kyle sounds more like he’s talking to himself rather than reassuring them.
“Hen, tell us you’re alright,” Johnny is frantically speaking into his radio.
Thank god you chose a spot with a secondary ledge. You tumble with him, falling the intimidating but non-lethal distance. The air is knocked from your lungs, leaving you gaping and unable to speak as the panicked murmurs of the team flood your ear.
You try to regain your breath, looking toward to enemy to see if he’s recovered, when you spot your saving grace—his gun that fell off the ledge earlier.
Miraculously, you draw a stunted breath, rolling onto your stomach and getting up to your hands and knees, making the arduous crawl to the weapon. You need to have it before he recovers.
For once, luck is on your side. He’s finally coming back to himself and starting to get up, but you already have the gun in hand and turned on him. He doesn’t even make it one centimeter.
You slump down, exhausted. Fuckin’ hell, you weren’t expecting hand-to-hand today.
Finally you register the shouts through the comms, “I’m alright,” you breathe heavily down the line, looking up at an impossible climb, “…just might need some help with exfil.”
You don’t see or hear it, but the way their shoulders drop and the sighs of relief they take are telling. John takes off his hat to rub the sweat from his brow, Kyle’s head drops like he can’t be bothered to keep it up anymore, Simon grips Johnny’s shoulder tightly, grounding them both.
“Oh, yeah, and that sniper is definitely still active.”
“What happened to taking care of it?” Simon jokes.
“Alright, hey, I just fell off a cliff, cut me some slack.”
You joke back, but you’ll never know the limb-numbing fear they just felt. They move on like nothing happened, but in the back of their minds they know they almost lost you, and they hated that feeling.
Somehow they complete their mission, staying behind enough cover to evade the sniper. Of course, the ‘stealth’ part of their mission was lying dead in the dirt, so a more head-on approach had to be taken. You get the beautiful job of sitting on a random cliff for the next 2 hours, but when they’re done they come to retrieve you, sending down a rope to pull you back up.
When you’re finally back in their arms, they give you a once over. John clicks his tongue at the sight of the blood dripping down your forehead, and motions for Kyle to grab some gauze from Johnny’s backpack. John makes you sit down as he stops the bleeding and adds a temporary bandage, Simon forces you to drink some water and scarf down one of the shitty MRE granola bars as he works. Kyle packs up the rest of your things for you while Johnny sits beside you and holds your knee. Finally, you all get to go home.
That night, you noticed they all seemed to keep a closer eye on you, like they couldn’t look away. The couch felt more packed than normal too, like they were squeezing in tighter. There was also more touching, just random brushes and pats here and there like they had to make sure you still existed. You noticed, but you let it happen anyway. You wouldn’t let it show, but the fall freaked you out too—you needed the reassurance as much as they did.
